GeneOhm Sciences announces year long MRSA study in the United Kingdom
Advertisement
GeneOhm Sciences announced the beginning of a year-long pilot study, commissioned by the UK Department of Health, of proactive patient screening to detect colonization by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The program, which will be implemented at Birmingham Heartlands and Solihul NHS Trust in Birmingham, UK, will include testing approximately 10,000 patients using GeneOhm's IDI-MRSA(TM) rapid, molecular-based screening assay for identification of MRSA directly from patient specimens. The IDI-MRSA assay is currently in use at numerous leading institutions in the UK, Europe and North America.
Birmingham Heartlands and Solihul NHS Trust, two progressive hospitals in the UK, currently screen patients on admission for MRSA, but the medical staff waits 48 hours or more for results coming from tests based on the traditional culture methods used. This delay means that patients carrying MRSA are not identified until two to three days after they are in a ward. The IDI-MRSA assay system can detect MRSA in less than two hours directly from the patient specimen.
MRSA is a drug-resistant form of the pathogen S. aureus, which is a major cause of infection in both healthcare and community settings. MRSA infections have been shown to cause substantial illness and longer hospital stays. Having definitive results for MRSA in hours instead of days allows proper treatment to begin almost immediately, significantly improving outcomes while enabling institutions to better control overall costs of infections.
Other news from the department science
