Rapid susceptibility testing for Enterobacteriacae from blood cultures
Research type
Research Study
Full title
An evaluation of the use of rapid disk diffusion antibiotic susceptibility testing for Enterobacteriaceae direct from positive blood cultures.
IRAS ID
257527
Contact name
Barry Neish
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Greenwich
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 10 days
Research summary
Is there potential to generate rapid antibiotic susceptibilities for Enterobacteriaceae performed directly from positive patient blood cultures?
There is an increasing requirement for the provision of rapid diagnostic testing, particularly in the management of sepsis. Rapid identification methods identify causative organism within hours after a positive blood culture result but there is a disparity in the provision of rapid susceptibilities.
Susceptibility results are necessary for the delivery of appropriate treatment and support antimicrobial stewardship programmes to preserve the efficacy of these critical resources.
The clinically focused objectives of the research are; to develop a method of disk diffusion susceptibility testing to support rapid growth of Enterobacteriaceae and facilitate early interpretation of susceptibility results, and to evaluate the provision of preliminary same day results. The primary benefit of achieving these objectives is the 50%-75% reduction in result turnaround times. It is anticipated results would be available 4 to 8 hours after a positive blood culture results rather than after 16-20 hours.
Routinely collected positive blood culture samples, surplus and ready for discard in the microbiology department at York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, will be used. There will be no participant involvement. Samples will be anonymised, identifiable by sequential number 1-100 only. No additional tests to those originally requested by the service user will be performed, and data generated will have no impact on the reported result.
Samples will be selected on the basis of the microscopy result, i.e. those where Gram-negative bacilli were seen. The study will utilise the organisms derived from the positive patient blood culture samples to test the proposed methodology. The duration of the research is expected to be approximately 2 months, enabling collection of 100 Gram-negative organisms from positive samples.
The research will be funded by the microbiology department at York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SC/0093
Date of REC Opinion
15 Feb 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion