FilmArray (BCID2) provides essential and timely results in bloodstream infections in small acute care hospitals without conventional microbiology services

• Published in: APMIS
• Main Authors: Harboe-Sjåvik, Hege, Endresen, Kristoffer Hammer, Åsheim, Sandra Elena, Sundsfjord, Arnfinn Ståle
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2024
• Subjects: Helgeland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10037/34464; https://doi.org/10.1111/apm.13374

We have evaluated the performance of FilmArray BCID2 in reactive blood cultures in a small acute care hospital compared to conventional diagnostics at a regional microbiological laboratory. This is a retrospective observational study of BactAlert reactive blood cultures (n = 160) from Helgeland Hospital, July–December 2021, analysed by BCID2 locally and conventional culture at a regional laboratory. The overall clinical and analytic sensitivity with BCID2 were 87.2% and 97.8%, respectively. The false-negative BCID2 rate was low (n = 4; 2.9%). No false-positive BCID2 results were observed. The BCID2 data were available on average 1.88 days earlier than culture-based results, due to long transport time to the regional laboratory. The BCID2 provided results to support a significantly earlier optimized targeted antibiotic treatment in 27% of the cases according to national guidelines for empirical treatment of BSI. The high clinical and analytical sensitivity, and specificity support the use of BCID2 as a robust supplement to traditional cultivation of positive blood cultures. The significant time gain to microbial identification and detection of resistance determinants suggests a great clinical importance of BCID2 in small acute care hospitals with long transport time to conventional clinical microbiology services.