PNA FISH® is a rapid and accurate molecular-based test that allows microbiology labs to report species identification results for positive blood cultures within hours instead of days.
Features and Benefits
Rapid results with PNA FISH® have been shown to:
- Reduce mortality and costs associated with S. aureus bacteremia1
- Reduce length of stay and unnecessary vancomycin use due to CNS-contaminated blood cultures2
- Reduce time to correct therapy and mortality for E. faecium bacteremia3
- Reduce antifungal drug costs associated with C. albicans fungemia4
Every year 350,000 patients acquire bloodstream infections in the U.S., resulting in more than 90,000 deaths and significant costs to the healthcare system.1 Rapid identification of the causative pathogen is crucial to ensuring early, appropriate, and effective therapy in order to improve patient outcomes.
Traditional identification results, however, can take up to 48 to 72 hours or longer, during which time patients often receive empirical therapy that may either be inadequate or unnecessary.
1. Ly T, Gulia J, Pyrgos V, Waga M, Shoham S. 2008. Impact upon clinical outcomes of translation of PNA FISH-generated laboratory data from the clinical microbiology bench to bedside in real time. Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management, in press, http://dovepress.com/articles.php?journal_id=68.
2. Forrest GN, Mehta S, Weekes E, Lincalis DP, Johnson JK, Venezia RA. 2006. Impact of rapid in situ hybridization testing on coagulase-negative staphylocci positive blood cultures. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy,58: 154-158.
3. Forrest GN. 2007. PNA FISH: present and future impact on patient management. Expert Review Molecular Diagnosis, 7(3): 231-236.
4. Forrest GN, Mankes K, Jabra-Rizk MA, Weekes E, Johnson JK, LincalisDP, Venezia RA. 2006. Peptide Nucleic Acid Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization- Based Identification of Candida albicans and Its Impact on Mortality and Antifungal Therapy Costs. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 44: 3381-3383.
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