Skip to main content

Syndromic Infectious Disease Testing: The New Paradigm

When parents of pediatric patients bring their children into the clinic or emergency room, they understandably want answers as quickly as possible. Since many pathogens can manifest with similar symptoms, the traditional route of testing for one pathogen at a time—often with a 48 to 72-hour delay in obtaining results—can lead to worsening symptoms, unnecessary antibiotic therapy, and increased length of stay in the hospital.

The BIOFIRE® FILMARRAY® System tests for multiple pathogens with just one syndromic test. It empowers clinical and laboratory staff to get the answers they need in a clinically actionable time frame—typically in about an hour.

Syndromic Meningitis/Encephalitis Testing

With life-threatening conditions like meningitis and encephalitis, time to diagnosis is especially critical. The BIOFIRE® FILMARRAY® Meningitis/Encephalitis Panel tests for a comprehensive set of 14 of the most common bacteria, viruses, and fungi in about an hour, allowing clinicians to:

  • Improve treatment decisions by potential avoidance of unnecessary acyclovir use in low-risk HSV-negative pediatric patients.1
  • Reduce average time to results by up to 4-days.2,3
  • Double the positivity rate of pathogen detection compared to send-out lab tests.4
  • Reduce length of stay by 2 days in children with pediatric CNS infections.2
  • Reduce hospital stays by avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions by up to 38%.4
  • Improve antimicrobial therapy with 64-hour decrease in time to targeted therapy.5

Emergency medicine physician Sameer Desai has seen firsthand the benefits of rapid diagnosis:

Dr. Sameer Desai

“One of the most recent cases I had, where it definitely changed which direction we went with the patient, was about a 45-day-old child who came in with a fever. Classically, our algorithm is to admit them to the hospital, and they get two days of antibiotics while waiting for culture results. Luckily, in this case, we were test with BIOFIRE. We realized meningitis was going to be the diagnosis, but we were able to isolate it to enterovirus specifically. The child was able to be observed in the ER for a day and basically be sent home, instead of going upstairs to the pediatric floor and being exposed to other kids as well.”

Syndromic Respiratory Testing

The similar presentation of respiratory infections can make the pathogenic cause difficult to distinguish. By testing for 21 targets in a single test, the BIOFIRE® FILMARRAY® Respiratory 2 Panel allows clinicians to:

  • Avoid antibiotics in 30% of pediatric patients tested6
  • Provide results for pediatric patients while they are still in the emergency department 38% more often7
  • Reduce hospital stays by 5 days for febrile infants with a positive test result8
  • Identify pathogens more often by producing a 42% positive identification rate in a pediatric population9

Another emergency medicine physician, Dr. Louis Frazier, has experienced the power of syndromic testing in treating pediatric patients and reassuring anxious parents:

Dr. Frazier

“It definitely helps me a lot when I’m dealing with six-year-old [outpatient department] patients—whether they need to be admitted to the hospital, or if it’s just a young child with nasal congestion or a cough, I can give the family reassurance that it’s a virus causing the symptoms.”

The New Paradigm

Person in lab holds BIOFIRE pouch

With one simple test and about an hour, the BIOFIRE System delivers rapid results for several clinically-relevant pathogens. Learn more about syndromic testing and discover BIOFIRE's comprehensive syndromic panels. 

References:

  1. Messacar K, et al, Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2016 Sep;86(1):118-20.
  2. O’Brien MP, et al, Impact of Cerebrospinal Fluid Multiplex Assay on Diagnosis and Outcomes of Central Nervous System Infections in Children: A Before and After Cohort Study. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2018 Sep;37(9)868-871.
  3. DiDiodato G, et al. 2019 OFID. 6(4):ofz119.
  4. McNabb KM, et al. 2017. Presented at Carolinas Health Quality Summit.
  5. Mina Y, et al. 2019 BMC Infectious Diseases 19:713.
  6. Sutton C, Walton P, Williams M, Bastian T, Wright M, Spires S. Impact of Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction Testing for Respiratory Pathogen Detection in Pediatric Patients, ID Week 2017, poster 1607.
  7. Rogers BB et al. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2015;139:636-641.
  8. McFall, et al., Pediatrics. 2017 Feb;:000992281774066.
  9. Subramony A, Zachariah P, Krones A, Whittier S, Saiman L. J Pediatr. 2016; doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2016.02.050016.02.050.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE:

  • Diagnostic Digest