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Serotype-specific urine test increases pneumonia detection
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Researchers said they developed a urinary antigen test that can detect cases of community-acquired pneumonia that are often missed by traditional tests.
The serotype-specific urinary antigen detection (SSUAD) assays significantly increased detection of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) targeted by the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine among hospital patients, they wrote in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
“Use of novel SSUAD assays nearly doubled the identification of pneumococcal pneumonia among adults hospitalized with CAP,” researcher Richard G. Wunderink, MD, a professor of medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “At the current time, SSUAD testing is not commercially available, but the results of this study highlight the need for more sensitive diagnostic tools for determining the etiology of CAP in adults in clinical settings.”
adult patients included in a prior study, the Etiology of Pneumonia in the Community (EPIC) study, which included patients at five hospitals in Chicago and Nashville.
They compared the results of the SSUAD assays to those of traditional cultures, as well as traditional urine antigen detection. The researchers analyzed specimens from 1,736 patients tested with SSUAD and at least one of the traditional methods.
Of those patients, 169 (9.7%) had pneumococcus detected by any type of test. Traditional tests identified 93 cases (5.4%), and SSUAD identified 110 cases (6.3%). Thirty-four cases were detected by both SSUAD and traditional tests, whereas 76 were detected only by SSUAD, the researchers said.
“Thus, the addition of SSUAD to traditional testing increased the detection of pneumococcal cases from 93 to 169, an 82% relative increase,” they wrote. – by Joe Green
Disclosures: Wunderink reports receiving grants from the CDC; clinical research funds from bioMérieux, Pfizer and Vertex Pharmaceuticals; and personal fees from bioMérieux and Visterra. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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