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Updated: Jul 12, 2025
Preparation of a Blood Culture Pellet for Rapid Bacterial Identification and Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing
Published on: October 15, 2014
Identification of microorganisms by a rapid PCR panel from positive blood cultures leads to faster optimal
Jessica Agnetti1,2, Andrea C Büchler3, Michael Osthoff4,5
1Clinical Bacteriology and Mycology, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Background:
The BioFire® FilmArray® Blood Culture Identification Panel 1 (BF-FA-BCIP) detects microorganisms with high accuracy in positive blood cultures (BC) - a key step in the management of patients with suspected bacteraemia. We aimed to compare the time to optimal antimicrobial therapy (OAT) for the BF-FA-BCIP vs. standard culture-based identification.
Methods:
In this retrospective single-centre study with a before-after design, 386 positive BC cases with identification by BF-FA-BCIP were compared to 414 controls with culture-based identification. The primary endpoint was the time from BC sampling to OAT. Secondary endpoints were time to effective therapy, length of stay, (re-)admission to ICU, in-hospital and 30-day mortality. Outcomes were assessed using Cox proportional hazard models and logistic regressions.
Results:
Baseline characteristics of included adult inpatients were comparable. Main sources of bacteraemia were urinary tract and intra-abdominal infection (19.2% vs. 22.0% and 16.8% vs. 15.7%, for cases and controls, respectively). Median (95%CI) time to OAT was 25.5 (21.0-31.2) hours with BF-FA-BCIP compared to 45.7 (37.7-51.4) hours with culture-based identification. We observed no significant difference for secondary outcomes.
Conclusions:
Rapid microorganism identification by BF-FA-BCIP was associated with a median 20-h earlier initiation of OAT in patients with positive BC. No impact on length of stay and mortality was noted.
Trial Registration:
Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT04156633, registered on November 5, 2019.
