UK scientists have developed a faster way to detect bloodstream infections and predict antibiotic resistance, at a time of worryingly high antibiotic usage.
University of Oxford researchers have established a faster way to identify the organisms behind bloodstream infections and predict antibiotic resistance using rapid DNA sequencing. They hope the move will improve the care of hospital inpatients with sepsis and reduce unnecessary antibiotic use.
Their method, based on genetic sequencing, works out in real time which bacteria cause infections, as well as the antibiotics they are resistant to.
This proved a highly accurate approach in almost 300 samples, finding the correct bacteria in 3.5 hours as opposed to the 12 hours of standard testing. It also allowed the team to identify the resistant infections 20 hours faster than the current standard testing, and find 18 additional bacteria that standard testing had never found, but were plausible causes of a patient’s infection.
Hopes for future patients
The team, supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford, will now conduct another study comparing this sequencing method with four other potential new methods for finding pathogens or antibiotic resistance in bloodstream infections. They will assess their accuracy, speed and user experience alongside those of standard laboratory methods.
This is a rare type of study, even becoming the largest in which a metagenomic sequencing called Oxford Nanopore was used in a clinical setting on routine blood samples. Now, those behind it hope it will ultimately bring targeted drugs more quickly to sepsis patients, feeding into existing clinical workflows and, crucially, speeding up definitive diagnoses.
The team will also survey NHS hospitals nationwide on how they currently diagnose bloodstream infections to work out where the tests might be most beneficial for patients.
“We know that treating these bloodstream infections rapidly is vital to increase the chances of survival. But clinicians often need to start giving antibiotics before the lab results are available. All too often, the first antibiotics given to a patient don’t kill the bacteria, so we need to change antibiotics, which delays patients getting the most effective treatment,” said study lead David Eyre.
Currently, around 245,000 people develop sepsis each year in the UK, with 48,000 dying as a result. Antimicrobial resistance is another huge concern for doctors worldwide.
