Diatherix Laboratories has added a gastrointestinal (GI) panel to its lineup of sensitive, response diagnostic tests. Diatherix GI panel can detect and differentiate nine types of GI infections and helps physicians to identify severe, life-threatening infections in patients.

The GI panel provides physicians with accurate test results in one day by which patients can be more effectively treated through targeted therapeutics which reduces overall medical costs and a patient’s down time.

The nine bacterial pathogens targeted in the GI panel include Clostridium difficile; Clostridium difficile toxin B gene; Campylobacter jejuni; Escherichia coli strain 0157; Listeria monocytogenes; Salmonella enterica; Staphylococcus aureus; Vibrio cholerae; and Vibrio parahaemolyticus. The other panels include tests for infectious disease; Staphylococcus differentiation; respiratory infections; human papillomavirus typing and viral respiratory.

Diatherix said that its proprietary technology, polymerase chain reaction (Tem-PCR) which is target enriched multiplex, has been used by all the six panels. Tem-PCR is the diagnostic tool that identifies multiple pathogens, detect co-infections and determine genetic drug resistance in a single result.

Dennis Grimaud, chairman and CEO of Diatherix, said: “The GI infection C difficile is becoming more of a hospital threat than MRSA, and since hospitals are currently limited in their testing methods, this is the ideal time to introduce our new panel.”

Don Lazas, a gastroenterologist with associates in Gastroenterology in Nashville, said: “The Diatherix gastrointestinal test panel represents a major breakthrough in the diagnosis of infectious bacterial diarrhea and the identification of C difficile and the toxin B gene.

“Current stool culture based testing for these types of GI infections typically require long turn around times and often yield poor results, especially if a patient has been prescribed prior antibiotic therapy. In a single specimen, the Diatherix test provides highly-accurate, same-day diagnosis of all common causes of infectious bacterial diarrhea. It can also identify pathogens even in the presence of antibiotics.”