Abstract

BackgroundWhether or not to administer antibiotics is a common and challenging clinical decision in patients with suspected infections presenting to the emergency department (ED). We prospectively validate InSep, a 29-mRNA blood-based host response test for the prediction of bacterial and viral infections.MethodsThe PROMPT trial is a prospective, non-interventional, multi-center clinical study that enrolled 397 adult patients presenting to the ED with signs of acute infection and at least one vital sign change. The infection status was adjudicated using chart review (including a syndromic molecular respiratory panel, procalcitonin and C-reactive protein) by three infectious disease physicians blinded to InSep results. InSep (version BVN-2) was performed using PAXgene Blood RNA processed and quantified on NanoString nCounter SPRINT. InSep results (likelihood of bacterial and viral infection) were compared to the adjudicated infection status.ResultsSubject mean age was 64 years, comorbidities were significant for diabetes (17.1%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (13.6%), and severe neurological disease (6.8%); 16.9% of subjects were immunocompromised. Infections were adjudicated as bacterial (14.1%), viral (11.3%) and noninfected (0.25%): 74.1% of subjects were adjudicated as indeterminate. InSep distinguished bacterial vs. viral/noninfected patients and viral vs. bacterial/noninfected patients using consensus adjudication with AUROCs of 0.94 (95% CI 0.90–0.99) and 0.90 (95% CI 0.83–0.96), respectively. AUROCs for bacterial vs. viral/noninfected patients were 0.88 (95% CI 0.79–0.96) for PCT, 0.80 (95% CI 0.72–89) for CRP and 0.78 (95% CI 0.69–0.87) for white blood cell counts (of note, the latter biomarkers were provided as part of clinical adjudication). To enable clinical actionability, InSep incorporates score cutoffs to allocate patients into interpretation bands. The Very Likely (rule in) InSep bacterial band showed a specificity of 98% compared to 94% for the corresponding PCT band (> 0.5 µg/L); the Very Unlikely (rule-out) band showed a sensitivity of 95% for InSep compared to 86% for PCT. For the detection of viral infections, InSep demonstrated a specificity of 93% for the Very Likely band (rule in) and a sensitivity of 96% for the Very Unlikely band (rule out).ConclusionsInSep demonstrated high accuracy for predicting the presence of both bacterial and viral infections in ED patients with suspected acute infections or suspected sepsis. When translated into a rapid, point-of-care test, InSep will provide ED physicians with actionable results supporting early informed treatment decisions to improve patient outcomes while upholding antimicrobial stewardship.Registration number at Clinicaltrials.gov NCT 03295825.

Highlights

  • The optimal approach to empiric antibiotic prescribing for suspected sepsis in the emergency department (ED), timing and spectrum of therapy, is a matter of significant ongoing controversy [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]

  • Several European trials demonstrated that procalcitonin-guided management reduces antibiotic use [8, 9]; the incremental value of procalcitonin when used along best practice promotion of current guidelines has been questioned and a large US multicenter interventional trial failed to show a reduction in antibiotic use [10]

  • We enrolled a total of 457 adult patients with suspected acute infection and at least one vital sign change across six EDs (Fig. 1); 30 patients denied participation, 27 were removed due to insufficient blood draws for the PAXgene Blood RNA tube, 2 were excluded due to missing clinical information and one patient was excluded due to errors during RNA extraction resulting in a final patient cohort of 397 patients

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Summary

Introduction

Due to the fears of untreated bacterial illness and sepsis, clinicians are likely to default to a decision to prescribe antibiotics [1]. This pattern drives antibiotic overuse and resistance, despite considerable efforts to change behavior [2,3,4]. Whether or not to administer antibiotics is a common and challenging clinical decision in patients with suspected infections presenting to the emergency department (ED). We prospectively validate InSep, a 29-mRNA blood-based host response test for the prediction of bacterial and viral infections

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