SeptiFast for diagnosis of sepsis in severely ill patients from a Brazilian hospital

OBJECTIVE To test and validate a multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction method for bloodstream infections, as well as to compare the results with conventional blood culture. METHODS A total of 114 consecutive patients with clinical evidence of sepsis were submitted to blood culture and LightCycler™ SeptiFast tests. RESULTS More positive specimens (23; 20.2%) were detected using the LightCycler™ SeptiFast than the blood culture (17; 14.9%), with an agreement of 86.8%. Discordant results were seen in four patients positive only to blood culture, ten positive only to LightCycler™ SeptiFast and one to different pathogens found by each test. Infections with microorganisms detected only using blood culture reassured the need to perform both tests. The mean time to results for blood culture was 5 days for negative and 3.5 days for positive results. LightCycler™ SeptiFast results were achieved in less than 8 hours. CONCLUSION LightCycler™ SeptiFast showed a high potential as a test to be carried out concomitantly with blood culture for sepsis diagnosis in severely ill patients. This test allowed a faster diagnosis of bacterial and fungal infections that helped to reduce hospital stay and to control the use of antibiotics. LightCycler™ SeptiFast can also eventually detect microorganism and infections that are hardly detected by blood culture, especially Candida non-albicans infections.