Roche's six-hour sepsis test:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Roche has CE-marked for sale in Europe a PCR-based test for sepsis that can identify the infection in less than six hours. The LightCycler SeptiFast test can detect several sepsis-causing pathogens simultaneously from just a three-millilitre sample of blood. It can detect and identify 25 different pathogens - including bacteria and fungi - which cause around 90% of all sepsis cases, said the Basel, Switzerland-based firm. Traditional tests for sepsis pathogens generally take from two to five days to complete, and up to eight days for the diagnosis of fungal infections, said the company. Roche noted that severe sepsis accounts for up to 135,000 European and 215,000 American deaths each year.