Candida test breakthrough for Rockeby Biomed

Clinical trials have validated the efficacy of a new test kit for diagnosis of systemic candidiasis, developed by Perth company Rockeby Biomed.

Dr John Warmington, Rockeby Biomed's R&D director, announced the results of the study at the Australian Society for Infectious Diseases conference this week.

He said the independent study was performed by a well respected team of researchers from the Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Parasitology at the University of Pais in Bilbao, Spain.

In the study, 10 out of 11 patients were shown to be positive using the SysCan3 test kit. The test was also 100 per cent accurate for negative tests.

Importantly, the kit was able to positively diagnose infection before the blood culture diagnosis was positive, indicating that the test could be used to diagnose candidiasis before the infection progressed too far.

Warmington said that the test kit would be useful for diagnosing candidiasis in patients with haematological cancers and patients in intensive care. Candida species are the cause of around 20 per cent of nocosomial bloodstream infections in hospitals in Australia and a major cause of infections in hospitals worldwide.

Current methods for diagnosis of candida infections are inefficient and expensive. The mortality rate for hospital patients with invasive candidiasis is high, ranging up to nearly 60 per cent.

"There has been an urgent need to develop a reliable and rapid diagnostic test that can be used in the early detection of candida infections, that will facilitate early and more effective therapeutic intervention," said Warmington.

Rockeby Biomed is already marketing the kit in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the UK. According to Warmington, the company is evaluating the requirements for marketing the product in the US.

The SysCan3 test kit uses an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) approach to detect elevated levels of anti-candida antibodies. It can be performed using standard laboratory equipment.

Warmington said its advantages were its low cost, ease of use and rapid production of results.

In addition to the SysCan3 kit, the company is developing a rapid version of the test that can be used at home to diagnose thrush, a superficial form of candida infection.

Warmington said that the long-term aim of the company is to develop therapeutic applications for the treatment of candida infections.