ABSTRACTA subset of bacteremia cases are caused by organisms not detected by a rapid-diagnostics platform, BioFire blood culture identification (BCID), with unknown clinical characteristics and outcomes. Patients with ≥1 positive blood culture over a 15-month period were grouped by negative (NB-PC) versus positive (PB-PC) BioFire BCID results and compared with respect to demographics, infection characteristics, antibiotic therapy, and outcomes (length of hospital stay [LOS] and in-hospital mortality). Six percent of 1,044 positive blood cultures were NB-PC. The overall mean age was 65 ± 22 years, 54% of the patients were male, and most were admitted from home; fewer NB-PC had diabetes (19% versus 31%,P= 0.0469), although the intensive care unit admission data were similar. Anaerobes were identified in 57% of the bacteremia cases from the NB-PC group by conventional methods:Bacteroidesspp. (30%),Clostridium(11%), andFusobacteriumspp. (8%). Final identification of the NB-PC pathogen was delayed by 2 days (P< 0.01) versus the PB-PC group. The sources of bacteremia were more frequently unknown for the NB-PC group (32% versus 11%,P< 0.01) and of pelvic origin (5% versus 0.1%,P< 0.01) compared to urine (31% versus 9%,P< 0.01) for the PB-PC patients. Fewer NB-PC patients received effective treatment before (68% versus 84%,P= 0.017) and after BCID results (82% versus 96%,P= 0.0048). The median LOS was similar (7 days), but more NB-PC patients died from infection (26% versus 8%,P< 0.01). Our findings affirm the need for the inclusion of anaerobes in BioFire BCID or other rapid diagnostic platforms to facilitate the prompt initiation of effective therapy for bacteremia.
Assessment of Time to Clinical Response in Patients with Sepsis Treated Before and After Implementation of a Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization Time-of-Flight Blood Culture Identification Algorithm – ERRATUM