IDWeek 2023

How new rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing technologies for blood cultures change the paradigm of patient care

Speakers: Romney Humphries, PhD, D(ABMM), M(ASCP) | Vincent Streva, PhD, D(ABMM)

Bloodstream infection is a medical emergency that necessitates prompt administration of appropriate antibiotics. Clinical microbiology laboratories perform antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) of isolates recovered from blood cultures to inform treatment decisions. Traditional AST involves the subculture of organisms from positive blood culture bottles, followed by AST, typically using a legacy AST system testing or disk diffusion method, which commonly takes 18 or more hours to provide results. Rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (rAST) technologies have been developed in recent years, eliminating the subculture step, preparing the samples directly from positive blood cultures, and effectively reducing the time-to-result by several hours to one day. The presenters will discuss the importance of rAST, the clinical and financial benefits of rAST for blood cultures and septic patients, and the importance of using current breakpoints to report susceptibility results.

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