Can Diagnostics Aid in Alleviating Antimicrobial Resistance and Sepsis?
In our latest From Pathogen to Infectious Disease Diagnosis podcast, bioMérieux Chief Medical Officer Chuck Cooper, MD, discusses the burden of resistance, and insights on the company’s novel Vitek Compact Pro ID/AST system, which looks to identify infectious disease in a timely manner, and aid clinicians in diagnosing patients and streamlining antimicrobial treatment and avoiding severe complications such as sepsis.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to be an increasingly significant public health issue, leading to higher mortality rates. One study estimated that bacterial AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million global deaths in 2019 and contributed to 4.95 million deaths.1
Untreated or undertreated bacterial infections are a major cause of sepsis—a serious complication that places a significant burden on hospitalized patients. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 1.7 million adults in the US develop sepsis each year. In terms of mortality, the agency reports that at least 350,000 adults who develop sepsis die during hospitalization or are discharged to hospice. Additionally, 1 in 3 people who die in the hospital had sepsis.2
Chuck Cooper, MD, Chief Medical Officer at bioMérieux, highlights the urgency of timely diagnosis and treatment.
“Every hour of delay in getting patients on effective therapy dramatically increases their mortality,” Cooper said.
“The challenge with antimicrobial resistance is that it compromises our ability to treat sepsis effectively, because it limits the options from an antimicrobial therapeutic perspective, and it makes it more difficult to get patients on the right therapy as quickly as possible,”Cooper said. “So, it's critically important for clinicians to receive accurate, rapid information about the antimicrobials that will work for an infection, so that they can treat patients with the effective therapy as soon as possible.”
To address resistance—and by extension, sepsis—bioMérieux has developed a diagnostic platform designed to efficiently and quickly identify infectious diseases. Earlier this year, the FDA cleared bioMérieux’s Vitek Compact Pro ID/AST system for microorganism identification (ID) and antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST). This system is intended to support clinical laboratories in identifying infectious diseases and combating AMR, and for use in industrial laboratories to identify contaminants and ensure consumer safety.3
“The Vitek Compact Pro provides both microorganism identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing results. This is essential for helping laboratories diagnose infectious diseases and combat resistance,” Cooper said.
The Vitek Compact Pro ID/AST system combines new diagnostic technology with features from its predecessor, the Vitek 2 Compact. With an ergonomically advanced design and simplified workflow, it enhances the user experience and boosts efficiency, reducing the time laboratory technicians need to spend on sample loading and processing.3
“It has a very intuitive user interface with guided workflow steps. This leads to a faster, more streamlined hands-on process before loading cassettes into the instrument, significantly reducing hands-on time,” Cooper added.
For industrial applications, the system will be used for the routine identification of pathogens to help ensure the quality and safety of food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic products.³
The commercial launch of the Vitek Compact Pro is planned in select countries, with a global rollout beginning this quarter.
