Supporting point-of-care bacterial infection testing

Mandy Campbell, sales and marketing manager at Horiba Medical provides an overview of the value of using CRP with FBC testing at the point-of-care using a unique haematology analyser. She also highlights specific examples of how this POC application can deliver clinical and financial benefits by impacting on speed of treatment and amount of antibiotic use within paediatric emergency care, a frailty assessment centre to prevent unnecessary A&E admissions and influenza diagnosis.

C-Reactive Protein (CRP) is a common blood test used to support clinical decision making, particularly when used as a proxy indicator for the presence or absence of bacterial infection. When combined with full blood cell (FBC) count with white blood cell differentiation it can aid the distinction between bacterial and viral illnesses. The test is normally performed in the hospital laboratory, and once received there, time to results can take up to 90 minutes. However, the time from needle to result can be considerably longer depending on patient and laboratory locations. 

It is crucial to be able to quickly exclude bacterial infections and sepsis in emergency care and point-of-care clinics in order to obtain a swift diagnosis for appropriate therapy. This in turn also supports antimicrobial stewardship, not only for cost savings by reducing antibiotic usage but also addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) challenges. For this reason, the rapid availability of laboratory accurate CRP and FBC combined measurements within a few minutes at the point-of-care (POC) would be highly beneficial.