Addressing the need for fast, accurate tests for serious infections

  • Posted on 25.11.2014

Addressing the need for fast, accurate tests for serious infections

Rangarajan Sampath

Rangarajan Sampath

Director of Science & Technology

addressingseriousinfections

A rise in the spread of new diseases, such as Ebola, and the resurgence of diseases that were once considered under control, like malaria, have captured the world’s attention and raised awareness of the risks of infectious disease. [1]

Add to this the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance caused by the use and misuse of antimicrobials over the past 70 years [2], and it is clear that there is an urgent need for the development of new diagnostics and medicines that address the way critical infections are diagnosed and treated.

Many times, those suffering from critical infections develop sepsis as the body tries to fight the illness. [3]

Sepsis is a fast-moving bloodstream infection that occurs when a severe response to bacteria or other pathogens cause one or more organs in the body to fail, which one can consider “shock.” The death rates in sepsis remain unacceptably high, which can be attributed to many possible reasons. One is that sepsis is often recognized late and patients are inappropriately treated prior to their arrival in the intensive care unit. [4]

Early symptoms of sepsis, like fever, chills and weakness, can resemble other less serious illnesses, which poses a challenge for physicians attempting to diagnose sepsis early and accurately. Sepsis starts with an infection, and it is important to recognize and treat that infection as early as possible. Today blood culture is the standard of care to identify the organism causing the infection. But blood culture results can take days to weeks to produce and have limitations in detection accuracy. Blood culture has failed to identify an organism in septic patients in excess of 50 percent. [5]

Unfortunately, there is little margin for error when diagnosing critically ill patients, and preventable delays can be life-threatening. The chance of survival decreases approximately 12 percent each hour treatment is delayed. [6] However, the ability to rapidly administer the correct antibiotic has the potential to cut the risk of death in half. [7] Experts believe there is a “golden hour” during which effective antimicrobial therapy can improve patient outcomes in septic shock.

To address the need for a fast, accurate diagnostic for serious infections like sepsis, my company (Abbott) is developing a new technology that has the potential to revolutionize that way infections are detected.

Our technology will test for and rapidly identify hundreds of pathogens within hours (versus days to weeks with culture methods), directly from a patient sample.

We recognize the urgent need for advances in the way sepsis is detected and enhanced communication around its health risks.

Sepsis affects more than 26 million people worldwide each year, [8] and takes the lives of roughly 37,000 in the U.K.[9] A typical sepsis episode costs a health care organization approximately €25,000, [10] and, based on 100,000 cases per year, costs the National Health Service more than £2.5 billion.[11]

We are hopeful that new promising technologies may bring us closer to addressing this global health need.

– Rangarajan Sampath, PhD, Director, Science and Technology, Abbott Ibis Biosciences 


[1] http://www.who.int/csr/resources/publications/introduction/en/index1.html

[2] http://www.who.int/drugresistance/about/en/

[3] http://www.sepsisalliance.org/sepsis_and/ebola/

[4] Vincent, J.-L., et al. (2003). “Reducing mortality in sepsis: new directions.” CRITICAL CARE-LONDON- 6.

[5] Westh, H., et al. (2009). “Multiplex real-time PCR and blood culture for identification of bloodstream pathogens in patients with suspected sepsis.” Clinical Microbiology and Infection 15(6): 544-551.

[6] Kumar, A., et al. (2006). “Duration of hypotension before initiation of effective antimicrobial therapy is the critical determinant of survival in human septic shock*.” Crit Care Med 34(6): 1589-1596.

[7] Kumar, A., et al. (2006). “Duration of hypotension before initiation of effective antimicrobial therapy is the critical determinant of survival in human septic shock*.” Crit Care Med 34(6): 1589-1596.

[8] http://www.g-i-n.net/conference/past-conferences/10th-conference/monday/2-45-pm-to-5-45-pm/lang-63.pdf

[9] http://sepsistrust.org/info-for-the-public/

[10] Vincent JL, Sakr Y, Sprung CL, et al. Sepsis in European intensive care units: results of the SOAP study. Critical Care Medicine 2006; 34: 344-353

[11] UK Sepsis Trust, August 2013. http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/spesis-brief.pdf

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