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Accurate and prompt diagnoses of Acute Lower Respiratory Tract Infections (LRTIs) is vital to ensure correct treatment plans are in place to improve patient management.

Immunosuppressed and paediatric patients are especially susceptible to severe disease progression, with sometimes fatal consequences. Dr Marcus Panning, physician and medical virologist, at The University Medical Centre Freiburg, has selected the Fast-track diagnostics Respiratory pathogens 21 assay to detect LRTIs and effectively diagnose vulnerable patients.

Dr Panning sees a large proportion of patients in the immunosuppressed and paediatric patient groups. His laboratory runs between 1500 and 2500 tests per year, therefore having the ability to provide timely and accurate diagnoses is of utmost importance to avoid increased mortality and morbidity rates.

After running comparison studies, Dr Panning found the overall performance of the Fast-track diagnostic assays to be more advantageous than those previously used for the detection of LRTI pathogens. The compatibility, reliability and flexibility of the kits were appealing factors, in addition to the kits being less labour intensive.

“The Respiratory pathogens 21 assay allows my laboratory to produce results in a timely fashion for prompt diagnosis whilst allowing us to test for atypical pathogens, which otherwise would not be tested for,” said Dr Panning. “Having the ability to simultaneously test for atypical bacteria reduces the number of samples we have to test, and greatly improves patient diagnosis.”

Fast-track diagnostics develops and manufactures more than 60 different assays in 32 and 64 reaction kit sizes, detecting more than 150 different pathogens. The syndromically grouped real-time PCR multiplex kits, serve the clinical need, as they test for all probable pathogenic causes including virus, bacteria, fungi or parasite, simultaneously, in one run. The kits are an effective way of saving time, resources, reagents and money, but most importantly improving patient diagnosis and prognosis, in vulnerable patients.

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