Sepsis is among the most feared conditions for healthcare providers. These blood infections strike with such rapid intensity that treating them demands a mix of both clinical skill and luck — recognizing symptoms early enough while choosing the right drug to tame the bacterial culprit before the germs have overwhelmed the body's immune system.
All too often, sepsis wins the race. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 1.7 million people in this country develop sepsis annually. About 350,000 die during hospitalization or are discharged to hospice.
But new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers hope that clinicians may one day be able to detect and treat sepsis more quickly.
The researchers broke down whole blood and dried it by heating, resulting in a solid porous structure with the bacterial DNA trapped inside. They then used chemicals — primers and enzymes — to reach inside the porous structure and amplify the target DNA.
The team was able to detect four cause of bloodstream infections — the bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), gram-negative Escherichia coli, and the fungal species Candida albicansThey validated their method against clinical laboratory results that used blood cultures and DNA analyses to detect sepsis.
