Evaluation of the liquid colony for identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing directly from positive blood cultures

Abstract Background Sepsis represents a time-sensitive disease requiring early therapeutical intervention to avoid adverse patient outcomes. Rapid microbiological diagnosis is essential to investigate sepsis aetiological agents. The FAST™ system (Qvella, ON, Canada) provides a concentrated microbial suspension, known as a Liquid Colony™ (LC), directly from positive blood samples (PBCs) in 30–40 min to perform rapid identification (ID) and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). Methods Qvella’s FAST™ System and FAST PBC Prep cartridges were tested on PBCs from the Policlinico Hospital of Catania during a six-month study. Two millilitres of PBC were converted into an LC for rapid ID and AST using Bruker Biotyper Sirius MALDI and BD Phoenix systems. Standard of care (SOC) methods were used as a reference, requiring 48–72 h. Agreement between the innovative technology and the standard method was calculated. Results FAST System processing was performed on 100 monomicrobial PBCs. Median turnaround times from blood cultures flagging positive to ID and AST completion were 2 and 26 h respectively. Therefore, the LC procedure was 24 h faster than the median turnaround times for SOC methods. 100% ID identification concordance was observed across 48 Gram-negative bacteria, 42 Gram-positive bacteria and 11 yeast for the genus level. 78% of Gram-negative and 95% of Gram-positive bacteria were resistant to ≥ 2 antimicrobial agents, including 45% (15/33) carbapenem-resistant enteric Gram-negative bacteria and 90% (28/31) oxacillin-resistant staphylococci. An AST essential agreement of 100% was observed due to the absence of MIC discrepancies > 1-fold dilution. Categorical errors were not observed due to the absence of MIC categorization discordances. Yeast AST was not performed. Conclusions The Qvella FAST System produces an LC that reliably reflects the MALDI spectra and phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility profile of microbial cells growing in the blood culture. Timely processing of PBCs with the Qvella FAST System enables sepsis diagnostic confirmation 1 day sooner than the standard methods. In line with these results, it is vital now to focus attention on establishing best practices for incorporating this strategic tool into the clinical microbiology laboratory workflow.