Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2021 Feb;99(2):115236.
doi: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2020.115236. Epub 2020 Oct 10.

Laboratory evaluation of the BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia plus panel compared to conventional methods for the identification of bacteria in lower respiratory tract specimens: a prospective cross-sectional study from South Africa

Barend Mitton  1 , Roxanne Rule  2 , Mohamed Said  2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Laboratory evaluation of the BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia plus panel compared to conventional methods for the identification of bacteria in lower respiratory tract specimens: a prospective cross-sectional study from South Africa

Barend Mitton et al. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis. 2021 Feb.

Abstract

Lower respiratory tract infections are important causes of morbidity and mortality. The global increase in antimicrobial resistance necessitates rapid diagnostic assays. The BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia plus (FAPP) panel is a Food and Drug Administration-approved multiplex polymerase chain reaction assay that detects the most important etiological agents of pneumonia and associated antibiotic resistance genes, in approximately 1 hour. This study assessed the diagnostic performance of this assay by comparing it to conventional culture methods in the analysis of 59 lower respiratory tract specimens. The sensitivity and specificity of the FAPP panel for bacterial detection were 92.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], 80.8% to 97.8%) and 93.8% (95% CI, 91.1% to 95.3%) respectively. For detecting antibiotic resistance, the positive- and negative percent agreement were 100% (95% CI, 81.5% to 100.0%) and 98.5% (95% CI, 216 96.7% to 99.4%) respectively. The FAPP panel was found to be highly accurate in evaluating tracheal aspirate specimens from hospitalized patients.

Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance; BioFire; FilmArray; Infection prevention and control; Lower respiratory tract infections; Multiplex PCR; Pneumonia.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Alby K., Mitchell S.L. Lower respiratory multiplex panels for the detection of bacterial and viral infections. Clin Microbiol Newsl. 2018;40:131–136. - PMC - PubMed
    1. BioFire Diagnostics. Technical Note. Protocols for laboratory verification of performance of the BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia panel plus. FLM1-PRT-0264-01. 2018. Available from https://www.biofiredx.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/FLM1-PRT-0264-Pneum.... [Accessed April 19, 2020].
    1. BioMérieux Diagnostics. BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia plus panel. Available from: https://www.biomerieux-diagnostics.com/biofire-filmarray-pneumonia-panel. [Accessed April 19, 2020].
    1. CLSI . 30th ed. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute; Wayne, PA: 2020. Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. CLSI supplement M100.
    1. Faron M.L., Mahmutoglu D., Huang A., Balada-Llasat J.M., Relich R.F., Humphries R. Clinical evaluation of a semi-quantitative multiplex molecular assay for the identification of bacteria, viruses and fungi in lower respiratory specimens. Proceedings of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Meeting; Basel, Switzerland; 2018.

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources