Nanosphere, Inc., has announced publication of a study in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology that evaluated the clinical and economic impact of rapid bacterial identification and antibiotic resistance determination by the Verigene Gram-Positive Blood Culture (BC-GP) Test for patients with enterococcal bacteremia, which can lead to sepsis. Published ahead of print under the title “A Stewardship Approach to Optimize Antimicrobial Therapy through Use of a Rapid Microarray Assay on Blood Cultures Positive with Enterococcus species,” the study was performed at University of Florida Health Jacksonville. It is the first study to evaluate the clinical and economic impact of using rapid microarray technology on optimizing therapy for enterococcal bacteria.
The study reports that following implementation of Verigene BC-GP for the detection of bloodstream infections caused by Enterococcus, there was an average per patient reduction in hospital length of stay of 21.7 days, and an average savings of $60,729 in hospital costs. In addition, there was a significant decrease in the average time it took for patients to receive appropriate treatment (23.4 hours), and an even greater reduction in time (31.1 hours) for patients with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) bacteremia—an especially deadly cause of bloodstream infection and sepsis. Verigene results enabled clinicians to immediately select appropriate therapy for 100% of patients with vancomycin-susceptible Enterococcus (VSE) bacteremia, potentially resulting in further cost savings. Finally, there was complete agreement between BC-GP test results and those derived from conventional culture and susceptibility methods, along with a significant reduction in time to reporting of test results (47.5 hours). Read the study abstract.
