Short turnaround time of seven to nine hours from sample collection until informed decision for sepsis treatment using nanopore sequencing

A study has developed a method to reduce wait times for sepsis diagnosis by using shorter blood culture incubation times for BD BACTEC™ bottles. The method was tested on nine blood samples with clinical isolates from six prevalent sepsis-causing pathogens. Pathogen identification was achieved at 102-104 CFU/mL after just 2 hours of incubation and within 40 minutes of nanopore sequencing. Antimicrobial resistance genes were identified at 103-107 CFU/mL after 5 hours of incubation and 10 to 3 hours of sequencing. The total turnaround time for informed antibiotic treatment decision was 7 to 9 hours.