Background: The BIOFIRE® Blood Culture Identification (BCID) Panel is a test for the rapid identification of major pathogen/organism groups that are main causes of sepsis and for detection of three antibiotic resistance genes by using a multiplexed PCR assay. The accuracy for the BCID Panel is assessed only for tests within 8 hours of positive blood cultures. However, in practical situations, it is often necessary to perform BCID tests after 8 hours of positive blood culture. Therefore, we conducted the evaluation of the BCID after 8 hours of positive blood culture, as compared to the tests within 8 hours of positive blood culture.
Materials/methods: We tested BCID Panel on 141 samples (67 within 8 hours, 74 after 8 hours from positive signal of blood culture bottle) from patients hospitalized in a tertiary hospital in Korea. The bacterial identification and antimicrobial sensitivity of all samples were confirmed by VITEK2 as reference method.
Results: Fifty-eight (within 8 hours) and 63 (after 8 hours) samples were analyzed, except for samples with bacteria which were not in BCID Panel. The agreement of results of BCID with VITEK2; within 8 hours was 94.8% (55/58), after 8 hours was 92.1% (58/63), respectively. The discrepancies within 8 hours were 2 misidentification and 1 false negative for mecA gene. On the other hands, the discrepancies after 8 hours were 3 false negative for bacteria, 1 misidentification, and 1 false positive for mecA gene.
Conclusions: In this study, the BIOFIRE® Blood Culture Identification (BCID) test results performed after 8 hours of positive blood culture showed good performance compared to those performed within 8 hours. If necessary, BCID test after 8 hours may be helpful in the diagnosis and treatment of bacteremia patient.