Assessing Feasibility of Point-of-Care Antibiotics Susceptibility Testing Technologies for Mitigating Access Gaps for Peripheral Communities

EasyChair Preprint no. 11478

Abstract

Background: Antibiotic resistance (AMR) is unquestionably one of the biggest issues facing developing nations today. Almost half of all antibiotic regimens begin with the incorrect drugs and without an adequate diagnosis of the microorganism that causes AMR. Therefore, there is a growing demand for methods and diagnostics that enable rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). Point Of Care Test (POCT) would potentially lead to improved access, more effective treatment and faster resolution of infections and this paper evaluates performance of one such technology.

Methods: We evaluated the performance of a new POCT “RightBiotic” for the rapid bacterial identification and prediction of AST. This study was conducted in two pre-implementation assessment rounds to validate the functionality and efficacy of this technology and results compared with those achieved through conventional culture methods.

Results: RightBiotic enabled bacterial identification and AST results within 4 hours when compared with conventional testing methods based on VITEK  2. Out of the 5 isolates identified by conventional method, only 3 isolates matched with the POCT results while AST results for these 3 isolates were not 100% matched. By reducing the typical timeframe for susceptibility testing from 2–3 days to 4 hours, the POCT phenotypic AST can provide critical information to clinicians prior to the administration of antibiotic therapy, can potentially enhance the efficacy of isolate identification and susceptibility results.

Conclusion: POCT in clinical samples holds great promise for improving healthcare delivery and accessibility to enable  better-targeted antibiotic use necessary for antibiotic stewardship. Therefore, systematic evaluation of such POC testing  models is an urgent priority for research and strengthening clinical practice.

Keyphrases: antibiotic susceptibility testing, Antimicrobial resistance, Clinical microbiology, Community Settings, Point-of-care testing

@Booklet{EasyChair:11478,
  author = {Vinay Modgil and Sundeep Sahay and Neelam Taneja and Arunima Mukherjee and Sapna Pahil and Harpreet Kaur and Nisha Singh and Gitika Arora and Neha Joshi and Rashmi Surial and Oshin Sinha},
  title = {Assessing Feasibility of Point-of-Care Antibiotics Susceptibility Testing Technologies for Mitigating Access Gaps for Peripheral Communities},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 11478},

  year = {EasyChair, 2023}}