Bi-compartmental evaluation of bacterial prints in infectious diseases – study hypothesis

Background PCR-based tools for detection of bacterial infections can considerably shorten the timespan from patient admission to initiation of targeted antibiotherapy. As culture-based methods are operator-sensitive and yield lower rates of identification in longer timespans, dependent on speciesspecific growth rates, there is a need for new techniques leading to rapid identification of the pathogenic agent and its antimicrobial susceptibility profile. PLEX-ID (Abbott Molecular Inc, Des Plaines, USA) ensures bacterial identification in a matter of hours, directly from clinical specimens, through PCR amplification and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry.