Progress in the rapid identification techniques for pathogenic microorganisms from blood culture positive specimens

Abstract

It takes at least 48 hours for traditional identification of pathogens from blood stream infection. Therefore, a rapid identification is vital for optimizing antimicrobial therapy and improving the prognosis of patients. In recent years, the intelligentialized Gram staining based on convolutional neural network has been applied to automatically interpret the species of pathogens in positive smear and the matrix-assisted laser desorption/ ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI TOF-MS) can quickly identify pathogens. Furthermore, Peptide nucleic acid fluorescence in situ hybridization(PNA FISH)is applicable to the rapid identification of pathogens from positive bacteria liquid. Powered by morphokinetic cellular analysis (MCA) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), the Accelerate Pheno system can directly identify pathogens from positive blood cultures and determine MIC of pathogens to antibiotics. The above-mentioned methods can provide a direct, rapid and accurate identification of pathogens from positive blood culture bottles without subculture.(Chin J Lab Med, 2018, 41: 790-793) Key words: Blood cultures; Microbiological techniques