Intensive care medicine
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Intensive care medicine · Jan 2015
Review Meta AnalysisAccuracy of LightCycler(®) SeptiFast for the detection and identification of pathogens in the blood of patients with suspected sepsis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
There is an urgent need to develop diagnostic tests to improve the detection of pathogens causing life-threatening infection (sepsis). SeptiFast is a CE-marked multi-pathogen real-time PCR system capable of detecting DNA sequences of bacteria and fungi present in blood samples within a few hours. We report here a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies of SeptiFast in the setting of suspected sepsis. ⋯ SeptiFast appears to have higher specificity than sensitivity, but deficiencies in study quality are likely to render this body of work unreliable. Based on the evidence presented here, it remains difficult to make firm recommendations about the likely clinical utility of SeptiFast in the setting of suspected sepsis.