ID-Sepsis Multiplex Panel

Sepsis is a medical emergency. Globally, mortality attributable to sepsis is measured in thousands of deaths per day, and mortality can reach 50% in certain critically ill populations. Survival was 82% when effective antimicrobial therapy was administered within one hour of documented sepsis in the ID Labs source material — timely identification of the causative pathogen is decisive.

Sepsis is suspected with fever or hypothermia, altered mental status, hypotension, dyspnoea or abdominal pain, and progresses to organ dysfunction when uncontrolled. It may be caused by Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacteria, fungi or (less commonly) viruses, and is increasingly complicated by antimicrobial resistance.

Conventional blood culture — indispensable for confirming viable organisms and performing susceptibility testing — takes 24–72 hours and frequently returns false-negative results, particularly after antibiotics. Waiting for culture forces clinicians to continue broad empirical therapy, driving resistance and toxicity.

Blood culture with automated incubation, biomarkers (procalcitonin, CRP), and single-plex molecular tests are the conventional tools. Each is slower or narrower than the clinical situation demands.

The ID-Sepsis Multiplex panel identifies the causative pathogen class and key resistance markers from a single 2 mL blood sample within approximately 5 hours, enabling earlier targeted therapy while culture proceeds in parallel for confirmation and full susceptibility testing.

Most valuable early in suspected sepsis, in febrile neutropenia (particularly with persistent fever or suspected invasive fungal infection), and when antibiotics were started before cultures were taken. Always draw blood cultures alongside the molecular test.