The increasing prevalence of antimicrobial resistance and the burden of disease due to hospital-associated pneumonia prompted Emma Jones and colleagues to investigate a molecular alternative to microbiological culture.
A significant disease burden is attributable to hospital-associated pneumonia (HAP), especially in the intensive care unit (ICU). Owing to the high morbidity and mortality rates associated with HAP, antibiotics are often given empirically, leading to inadequate therapy in up to 40% of cases.1
The gold standard for the diagnosis of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is microbiological culture of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) specimens, with results taking 48–72 hours. As antimicrobial resistance is becoming increasingly prevalent, it would be of great value to identify bacteria and their resistance mechanisms more rapidly. The Curetis Unyvero is a molecular diagnostics instrument that can identify 21 microorganisms and 19 antibiotic resistance genes in five hours.
This study aims to compare routine microbiological culture of BAL samples with the Curetis Unyvero in the diagnosis of pneumonia in adult intensive care units – could this replace or supplement the current service? – and retrospectively review whether or not patient management would have been changed had the Unyvero data been made available to clinicians in real time.
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