To study the utility of Respiratory Biofire in the management of adults with acute respiratory infections

Abstract

<b>Introduction:</b> Molecular methods are rapid point-of-care tests for the detection of infectious pathogens. The respiratory Biofire(filmarray) original respiratory panel delivers results on 17 viral and 3 bacterial targets in two hours from a nasopharyngeal swab. This helps in making timely etiological diagnosis and starting appropriate regimen for patients and reduces unwarrented antibiotic use. <b>Aim:</b> To determine if timely etiological diagnosis could have an impact on medical management in relation to antibiotic and antiviral prescription. <b>Methods:</b> A prospective cohort study of 100 patients above 18 years of age with acute respiratory tract infection with symptom onset within 7 days admitted to PD Hinduja hospital from Jan 2020-Jun 2020. <b>Results:</b> 69 of 100 swabs detected an organism and, the most common was Influenza AH3(37).Antibiotics were stopped in 20 of these patients and continued in 49 patients. No antivirals were started in 53 patients and antivirals were started in 47 patients. The yeild of sending the sample on day 1 was 60.87%.The change in antibiotics was done for Influenza AH3 for 14 patients and not done 23 patients out of 37.No antibiotics were change was done if no organism was resulted. <b>Conclusion:</b> The high respiratory viruses detection rate and availability of results within hours when using BioFire were associated with decrease in antibiotic prescription and timely start of antivirals. Due to its high sensitivity and simplicity of performance, the respiratory BioFire can be applied at the front line of diagnostics