The NxTag respiratory pathogen panel from Luminex Corp, Austin, Tex, was recently awarded the CE mark under the European Union’s In Vitro Diagnostics Directive. Employing a single closed-tube system that can be scaled to accommodate seasonal changes in demand, the panel detects 21 clinically relevant viral and bacterial respiratory pathogens, including the atypical bacteria Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
Many commonly encountered respiratory pathogens, both viral and bacterial, have similar clinical presentation, making it difficult to diagnose such illnesses based on symptoms alone. Influenza viruses commonly cause respiratory illness, but such pathogens as respiratory syncytial virus may also have a significant impact on patient health. In order to effectively prescribe treatment and control the spread of infection, clinicians must accurately detect the respiratory pathogen causing illness in their patients.
Requiring only minutes of hands-on time with no upstream reagent preparation, the NxTag panel offers a simplified workflow that permits extracted samples to be added directly to preplated, lyophilized reagents. The sealed tubes are then ready for closed-tube amplification and subsequent detection using the Luminex Magpix instrument. A tube strip design affords laboratories the flexibility to manage variable sample demand by processing a single sample or as many as 96 samples per run, without requiring full batches or wasting consumables or reagents. Excluding time for extraction, turnaround time for processing 96 samples is just over 3 hours.
The respiratory pathogen panel is accompanied by Synct software that provides a comprehensive approach to data analysis and reporting, and enables the panel to be integrated into any laboratory’s workflow. Laboratories can select any of a number of targets to customize their testing panel.
“As a leader in multiplexed solutions, Luminex is excited to launch the next-generation NxTag respiratory pathogen panel, which delivers expanded coverage and a simple closed-tube workflow, combined with the throughput and quality of results established by the XTag respiratory viral panel,” says Thomas Pracht, managing director for Europe, Middle East, India, and Africa at Luminex Corp. “With the CE-IVD marking of the NxTag respiratory pathogen panel, we continue to focus on delivering solutions that address our customers’ productivity needs.”
For more information, visit Luminex.
