Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHSBlood test could reduce antibiotic use
A blood test which shows when patients are responding to antibiotics will alert clinicians at the earliest possible stage when a course of the drugs should be halted.
The number of days that patients in intensive care in a French hospital received antibiotics was cut by a quarter from 14 to 11, using the new test.
It works by monitoring levels of the hormone procalcitonin in the body. How the body is responding to antibiotics is accurately reflected by this amount of procalcitonin.
The team behind the research say the cost of the research, at £13 a time, pales in comparison with the cost of prescribing antibiotics unnecessarily.
The Bichat-Claude-Bernard Hospital in Paris hosted the study.
The test looked at the levels of the hormone in 311 patients in intensive care. The results were used to adjust their antibiotic prescription. Another 319 patients were treated as normal.
According to the findings which were reported online in The Lancet, there was no difference in recurring infections, the number of days that patients required to help their breathing or in mortality rates.
The blood test “could reduce antibiotic selective pressure with potential benefits in the era of multiresistance” the research team concluded.
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