Athlomics launches biomarker test for sepsis

Brisbane-based molecular diagnostics company, Athlomics, has provided the first of its SeptiCyte Lab kits for the diagnosis of sepsis to Brisbane’s Mater Pathology.

The SeptiCyte Lab is a gene expression test that looks for signs of an immune response to the life threatening severe infection, sepsis.

The test results come back within three hours with an 85-95% success rate, which is substantially faster and more accurate than the existing technique of conducting a microbial culture.

Sepsis, sometimes called blood poisoning, is a whole-body inflammatory state in response to an infection, and affects 5-10% of all hospital patients. Sepsis causes more than 25,000 deaths a year in Australia.

“Currently one third of patients who contract severe sepsis are likely to die from the disease. It is the highest noncoronary cause of death in Intensive Care Units,” said Mater Health Services Director of Pathology, Professor Deon Venter.

“The gold standard diagnostic for sepsis is currently microbial culture which only provides a result in about half the cases of suspected sepsis; it is slow and prone to false positives and negatives,” said Venter.

“With SeptiCyte Lab we aim to deliver results within three hours of receiving samples, with extremely high accuracy.”