Collection
Rapid Diagnostic Tests to Detect Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria
Multidrug resistant bacteria that pose a particular threat in hospitals, nursing homes, and among patients whose care requires devices such as ventilators and blood catheters include: extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL)-producing and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales; carbapenem-resistant non-fermenters (Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa); methicillin-resistant, vancomycin-intermediate and vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus; vancomycin-resistant Enterococci; clarithromycin-resistant Helicobacter pylori, fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter spp., fluoroquinolone-resistant Salmonellae, and cephalosporin-resistant and fluoroquinolone-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
Detection, and therefore control, of such antimicrobial resistant bacteria is a major issue in clinical microbiology. Early detection of the major resistance traits is crucial for controlling their spread. Moreover, rapid diagnostic tests to detect antimicrobial resistant bacteria are central to reduce the frequency and duration of inappropriate antibiotic empirical therapy and to facilitate prompt de-escalation/discontinuation of broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents to targeted therapy. This will lead to better patient outcomes, reduction of all-cause 30-day mortality, and decrease of the hospitalization duration and costs.
Evaluations and investigations on point-of-care tests, phenotypic and genotyping assays for pathogen identification, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and for the identification of molecular mechanisms of resistance are required and will find perfect room in this article collection.
Editors
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Marta Aires-de-Sousa
Dr Aires-de-Sousa is a Professor of Microbiology and the chairman of the Direction Board at the Portuguese Red Cross Health School, Lisbon, Portugal. She is also a Researcher at the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, Instituto de Tecnologia QuÃmica e Biológica, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Her research interests include the molecular epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance mechanisms in Staphylococcus aureus and Enterobacteriaceae.
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Jaroslav Hrabák
Jaroslav Hrabak is a Professor of Medical Microbiology at Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University, Czech Republic. He is specialized in molecular epidemiology of Gram-negative bacteria (especially Enterobacterales and Pseudomonas spp.) and development of rapid diagnostic tests using mass spectrometry. He developed a MALDI-TOF MS-based method for carbapenemase detection.
