Evaluation of the BioFire ® FilmArray ® Pneumonia Panel with Conventional Bacterial Culture in Conjunction with Leukocyte Esterase Test

• Published in: Diagnostics (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 11; p. 1847
• Main Authors: Yoo, In Young, Seok, Hyun Soo, Kwon, Joo An, Lee, Jongmin, Jo, Sungjin, Kim, Soo Young, Park, Yeon-Joon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 25.05.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Bacteria; bacterial burden; Bacterial pneumonia; BioFire® FilmArray® pneumonia panel; Communication; community-acquired pneumonia; conventional culture; Diagnosis; Drug resistance; Enzymes; Hydrolases; Ions; Laboratories; leukocyte esterase; Leukocytes; Neutrophils; Pathogens; Pneumonia; Reagents; sputum quality; Stains & staining; Streptococcus infections; South Korea; United States > US; Germany; sputum quality; BioFire® FilmArray® pneumonia panel; community-acquired pneumonia; conventional culture; leukocyte esterase; bacterial burden
• ISSN: 2075-4418; 2075-4418
• DOI: 10.3390/diagnostics13111847

We evaluated the performance of the BioFire FilmArray Pneumonia panel (PN-panel) in detecting bacterial pathogens by comparing it to cultures and to the usefulness of the leukocyte esterase (LE) urine strip test. Between January and June 2022, a total of 67 sputum specimens were obtained from community-acquired pneumonia patients. The PN-panel and LE test were performed simultaneously with conventional cultures. The pathogen detection rates of the PN-panel and culture were 40/67 (59.7%) and 25/67 (37.3%), respectively. The concordance rate between the PN-panel and culture was high (76.9%) when the bacterial burden was high (10 copies/mL), but it was low (8.6%) when it was 10 copies/mL, irrespective of the sputum quality. According to the LE positivity, the overall culture positive rate and PN-panel positive rate were significantly higher among the LE-positive specimens (23/45, 31/45) than among the LE-negative specimens (2/21, 8/21). Moreover, the difference in concordance rate between the PN-panel test and culture was significant according to the LE positivity, but not the Gram stain grading. In conclusion, the PN-panel showed high concordance when the bacterial burden was high (10 copies/mL) and ancillary use of LE test will be helpful in interpreting the PN-panel results, especially when the copy number of bacterial pathogens is low.