Based
Harris and Hata Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials 2013, 12:2 Page 7 of 9
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on traditional practice patterns, it can only be assumed
that if patients are improving under a given course of
therapy, clinicians are less likely to change therapy, even
with the availability of ID results. Proactive management
of identification results by stakeholders such as Infectious
Disease or Pharmacy, as part of an active antibiotic
stewardship program will contribute to the downstream
benefits of rapid diagnosis by PNA-FISH.
A limitation of PNA-FISH is a requirement of an organism
concentration of at least 105 CFU/mL for detection.
This requirement may prove to be problematic for
detection of slow-growing, or fastidious organisms. At
the time this study was performed, a limited number of
PNA-FISH probes were available. However, additional
specific PNA-FISH probes are now available for Group
B Streptococcus , GNR Traffic Light (FDA-approved), C.
dubliniensis, C. parapsilosis, K. pneumoniae, and Acinetobacter
(analyte-specific reagents). Recent FDA approval
of a more rapid PNA-FISH protocol should prove
to be advantageous in further decreasing turnaround
time to organism identification [9].