AdvanDx Inc, Woburn, Mass, introduces QuickFISH™, a new rapid pathogen identification test for potential life-threatening bloodstream infections.

The test is a new, rapid, molecular diagnostic platform developed by the company based on its clinically proven proprietary PNA technology. The new platform enables 20-minute species identification of bacteria directly from positive blood cultures, allowing the reporting of pathogen identification at the same time as the reporting of Gram stain results. It will be available on September 24.

This marks a significant advance in time-to-result and ease of use that will help clinicians and clinical microbiologists optimize antibiotic therapy much earlier for patients with bloodstream infections, including septicemia, caused by dangerous bacterial pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci, according to the company.

Features include:

  • 5 minute hands-on time, to simplify and streamline laboratory workflow.
  • Builtin universal controls to ensure confidence in test results.
  • Limited instrumentation and capital investment required; easy and inexpensive to implement and start testing.

“It provides valuable information rapidly, enabling the prescriber to provide effective antimicrobial therapy more quickly to patients with bloodstream infections, which will help to save lives, decrease the number of hospital days for our patients, and allow for cost savings and improve other clinical outcomes,” says Keith S. Kaye, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and corporate medical director, Infection Prevention, Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Stewardship, Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University.

“QuickFISH will also improve antibiotic stewardship efforts and decrease inappropriate and unnecessary antibiotic utilization," he adds. "This in turn will help to improve patient safety and limit antibiotic resistance. At both the level of the individual patient and the health care provider, as well as from a public health perspective, QuickFISH is a welcomed innovation that will improve the management of bloodstream infections.”

[Source: AdvanDx]