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 On the occasion of this year’s Infectious Diseases Diagnostics Conference held in London on February 21st and 22nd, Rubalskii et al. [1] presented results obtained with the SelectNA™plus/Micro-Dx™ diagnosis of 97 samples from 52 patients under suspect of infectious endocarditis (IE). Specimens included mainly excised heart valves and blood, but also pacemaker electrodes, haematomas, pericardial abscesses and thrombi.
The patient-related positivity by culture as a reference and SelectNA™plus/Micro-Dx™ were 42% (22/52 patients) and 58% (30/52), respectively. A high coincidence (86%) of positive culture results was reached by SelectNA™plus/Micro-Dx™. The molecular test detected IE-typical streptococcal, staphylococcal and enterococcal pathogens as well as Corynebacterium diphtheriae in 11 culture-negative patients. Moreover, rare potentially infectious agents were identified including Abiotrophia defectiva, Bartonella quintana, Enterobacter cloacae and a fungus, Pseudallescheria boydii.
Based on the study results, the authors pointed out the good clinical performance and the great reduction of handling limited to loading of the instrument with consumables and samples. These characters make SelectNA™plus/Micro-Dx™ a promising versatile tool for culture-independent molecular diagnosis of IE infections.
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| [1] Rubalskii E, Ruemke S, Salmoukas C, Baussmerth C, Keim S, Linow M, Disqué C, Haverich A, Kühn C (2018) Broad-range 16S/18S PCR and sequencing diagnosis of infectious endocarditis using automated pathogen enrichment and DNA extraction. Poster presentation, Infectious Diseases Diagnostics Conference, 21-22 February, 2018, London |
