Clinical microbiology diagnostics firm QuantaMatrix has announced the development of 'uRAST' (Ultra-Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing), the world’s fastest all-in-one antimicrobial testing technology.
This breakthrough has been published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, marking a significant achievement for the diagnostic industry in South Korea.
Sepsis, a life-threatening condition where timely treatment is critical, has a 'golden hour' for intervention. Every hour of delay in administering the correct antimicrobial treatment decreases patient survival by 9%, leading to a 30% mortality rate within 30 days.
Traditional antimicrobial testing methods take days, often too long for effective sepsis treatment. The uRAST technology eliminates the need for the initial blood culture process, providing accurate results within just 13 hours after blood sampling. This advancement enables doctors to prescribe the right antibiotic faster, potentially saving thousands of lives.
“The Nature publication on uRAST highlights its potential to become the new standard in clinical microbiology. By drastically reducing testing times, we aim to lead the global market in both antimicrobial susceptibility and blood culture testing, which together represent a market value of approximately $20 billion,” said Sunghoon Kwon, CEO of QuantaMatrix.
uRAST boasts a 94.9% accuracy rate, aligning closely with existing methods. It also excels at detecting small quantities of bacteria in the early stages of infection, a task that has previously been almost impossible. When tested at Seoul National University Hospital, uRAST reduced the time from positive blood culture results to optimal antimicrobial prescription by an average of 13 hours, compared to current methods which typically take 48-72 hours. This time reduction includes both testing and the often-overlooked waiting periods between different steps in traditional processes.
- Kim TH, Kang J, Jang H, et al. Blood culture-free ultra-rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Nature. 2024;632(8026):893-902. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07725-1.