From a wide array of body sites thirty three samples were collected from the St. Mary-Corwin Hospital in Pueblo Colorado. Of those, 8 were determined to have Staphylococcus aureus infections by traditional microbiology methods. Seven of these samples were rapidly detected by the prototype rapid assay of MicroPhage, days before these full results were available.
“We were really excited by these early results,” said Drew Smith, Ph.D., MicroPhage Director of Research and Development. “We essentially took a prototype in development for our screening test and applied it to these samples. It demonstrates to us that the platform can easily be adapted to other samples types, which is very encouraging.” The results are so compelling that he concludes that a 5 hour result time is likely for this simple to use test.
Physicians do not have any antibiotic testing information when they prescribe the drugs for suspected infections like these in their patients. By doing so it has been shown to increase antibiotic resistance and make treating these infections more and more difficult. The typical turn-around for such a diagnosis is often more than 48 hours. MicroPhage presents findings that an easy-to-use platform which is similar to that of a pregnancy test, could hold the answer, through rapid, accurate tests which could help alleviate the need for antibiotics, or even help guide the use of more appropriate antibiotics in other clinical settings and hospitals.
