Evaluation of Verigene Gram-positive blood culture assay performance for bacteremic patients

The Verigene Gram-Positive Blood Culture (BC-GP) Assay (Nanosphere Inc., Northbrook, IL) is a microarray-based test designed to rapidly identify directly from positive blood cultures multiple bacterial species and their antimicrobial resistance markers. Nonduplicate blood cultures from 118 patients admitted to Erasme Hospital were prospectively enrolled. All but six organisms were members of the panel (95.6 %). For the identification of pathogens and detection of the mecA gene, the agreement with routine methods was 87.6 % and 97.7 %, respectively. The performance of the BC-GP assay was lower with polymicrobial than with monomicrobial blood cultures. Another concern of the BC-GP assay was the misidentification of Streptococcus mitis as S. pneumoniae (3/8). The BC-GP assay is a rapid and accurate tool for the simultaneous detection of multiple sepsis-causing bacteria and resistant genes from blood cultures, which could have an impact on patient management and healthcare cost.