Impact of Molecular Syndromic Diagnosis of Severe Pneumonia in the Management of Critically Ill Patients

The impact of syndromic molecular diagnosis in the management of nosocomial infections caused by MDR/XDR pathogens has been incompletely characterized. We evaluated the performance of a molecular syndromic platform (BioFire FilmArray -Pneumonia plus Panel) in 79 patients with pneumonia in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a University Hospital in Greece over a 2-year period (2018-2020) compared to 40 control patients diagnosed with pneumonia in the ICU the year before the study (2017-2018). Importantly, implementation of syndromic pneumonia panel improved time to diagnosis, identified new pathogens not detected by cultures in 49% of the cases and resulted in a significant reduction in antibiotic consumption compared to the year before initiation of the study without a negative impact in mortality of patients. Collectively, our study demonstrates the positive value of PCR syndromic testing in the management of pneumonia in ICUs high rates of MDR/XDR nosocomial pathogens.