Clinical Evaluation of the Acuitas® AMR Gene Panel for Rapid Detection of Bacteria and Genotypic Antibiotic Resistance Determinants

Abstract Urinary tract infections are leading causes of hospital admissions. Accurate and timely diagnosis is important due to increasing morbidity and mortality from antimicrobial resistance. We evaluated a polymerase chain reaction test (Acuitas AMR Gene Panel with the Acuitas Lighthouse Software) for detection of five common uropathogens (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterococcus faecalis) and antibiotic resistance genes directly from urine for prediction of phenotypic resistance. Overall percent agreement was 97% for semi-quantitative detection of uropathogens versus urine culture using a cut-off of 104 colony forming units per mL urine. Overall accuracy was 91 to 93% for genotypic prediction of common antibiotic resistance harbored by E. coli, K. pneumoniae and P. mirabilis.