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High medical impact of implementing the new polymeric bead-based BacT/ALERT® FAPlus and FNPlus blood culture bottles in standard care

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Abstract

Blood culture (BC) efficiency is critical for the diagnosis of bloodstream infection (BSI). We evaluated the impact on standard care of implementing the new BacT/ALERT® FAPlus and FNPlus BC bottles containing antibiotic-binding polymeric beads. We measured positivity rates and time to detection (TTD) during the first 10 months of implementation (PF) and during the previous 10-month period (PS) during which we were using standard aerobic (SA) or standard anaerobic (SN) BC bottles. For each period, the same number of consecutive patients (n = 3,918) was included. Per patient, a median of 1 BC set (1 aerobic and 1 anaerobic bottles) has been sampled. A higher positivity rate was measured during PF than PS when counting per BC bottle (7.0 % vs 5.8 % with 1,456 and 1,237 positive bottles respectively, P < 0.0001) and per BC set (9.6 % vs 7.8 % with 995 and 832 positive BC sets respectively, P < 0.0001). In PF, an increased number of cases due to staphylococci (P < 0.0001) and to Gram-negative bacilli (P < 0.005) was observed, whereas the contamination rate was similar during the two periods (2.4 % of BC sets in PF and 2.3 % in PS). Although antibiotic consumption and medical activity were similar during the two periods, BSI case detection increased from 2.2 to 2.6 per 1,000 hospital-days, especially in intensive care units (ICU; 35.1 to 55.7). Mean TTD for pathogenic microorganisms was significantly shorter in PF than in PS (15.5 h vs 18.0 h, P < 0.01). In conclusion, the use of the new FAPlus/FNPlus BC bottles improved the diagnosis of bacteremia in our hospital, especially in ICU patients.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all colleagues of the clinical wards involved in the patient chart review, all technicians involved in blood culture processing, and Celine Feger, MD (EMIBiotech), who provided editorial support. Some of the study results were presented at ECCMID 2013.

Funding

The study was funded under routine conditions.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Service de Bactériologie, AP-HP, Hôpital Lariboisière, 75010, Paris, France

    R. Amarsy-Guerle, F. Mougari, H. Jacquier, H. Benmansour, J. Riahi, B. Berçot, L. Raskine & E. Cambau

  2. Sorbonne Paris Cité, Inserm, IAME UMR 1137, Université Paris Diderot, 75010, Paris, France

    R. Amarsy-Guerle, F. Mougari, H. Jacquier, B. Berçot & E. Cambau

  3. AP-HP, Hôpital Lariboisière, Pharmacie, 75010, Paris, France

    J. Oliary

  4. Service de Bactériologie, Groupe Hospitalier Lariboisière-Fernand Widal, AP-HP, Paris, France

    E. Cambau

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  1. R. Amarsy-Guerle
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  2. F. Mougari
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  9. E. Cambau
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Correspondence to E. Cambau.

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Amarsy-Guerle, R., Mougari, F., Jacquier, H. et al. High medical impact of implementing the new polymeric bead-based BacT/ALERT® FAPlus and FNPlus blood culture bottles in standard care. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 34, 1031–1037 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-015-2319-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-015-2319-8

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