A new study suggests that a diagnostic from Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) offers a more accurate and faster diagnosis of the cause of blood-related infections. Currently, it can take days or even weeks to run tests on suspected causes of these infections, but this test promises to return better results within about 8 hours. The in vitro diagnostic is expected to receive a CE mark in the coming months.
Researchers presented data about the IRIDICA test platform, which combines polymerase chain reaction analysis with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (PCR/ESI-MS), at the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Washington, DC, on Sept. 8. PCR/ESI-MS can detect the cause of an infection--bacteria, fungi or viruses--even when blood cultures are negative.
The health economics study, known as Rapid Diagnosis of Infections in the Critically Ill (RADICAL), consisted of a review of 420 patients from the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland and Germany that were critically ill with suspected severe infections. The retrospective analysis compare the IRIDICA results versus the standard-of-care blood culture.
In 57% of these cases, an independent physician panel said they would have prescribed a different source of treatment.
Based on these results, the authors estimated that PCR/ESI-MS could reduce an average hospital stay by up to 8 days for people with serious infections. This would translate into a cost savings of about $2.2 million for a hospital that sees about 500 patients annually with blood-related infections.
"More than 50% of blood culture tests come back negative, even when infections are believed to exist," study author Dr. Jean-Louis Vincent, a professor of intensive care at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the head of the Department of Intensive Care at Erasme University Hospital, said in a statement.
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| Dr. Jean-Louis Vincent |
The researchers concluded based on the RADICAL study that IRIDICA could reduce intensive care costs for patients with blood-related infections by more than 30% annually. Each year, more than 26 million people develop sepsis; the bloodstream infection is considered one of the most expensive in-hospital conditions and costs $20 billion in the U.S. and £2.5 billion in the U.K. annually.
"The results of the RADICAL study and the economic analysis suggest the Abbott technology will provide actionable information much earlier, allow physicians to improve patient outcomes and may ultimately lower overall healthcare costs related to these serious infections," Vincent added.
At the William Blair conference in June, Abbott EVP of Finance and CFO Tom Freyman noted that Abbott is the No. 1 global provider of immunoassay diagnostics and blood screening in the $27 billion in vitro diagnostics market.
During the second quarter, Abbott had $1.2 billion in global diagnostics sales. That's up 4.8% from the same quarter a year prior, making it the company's fastest growing business. Abbott had global total sales of $5.6 billion during the second quarter of 2014.
- here is the release