Abstract
INTRODUCTION: It is time-consuming to identify fungal pathogens from positive blood cultures using the standard culture-based method. And delayed diagnosis of bloodstream infection leads to significantly increased mortality. METHODS: We developed a PCR-reverse dot blot hybridization combined with microfluidic chip techniques to rapidly identify 13 fungal pathogens within 3-4 h using the sample of blood cultured over a period of time. RESULTS: We performed clinical validation using 43 blood culture-positive samples with a sensitivity of 96.7%, a specificity of 100%, and a concordance rate of 97.7%. Samples with different culture durations were evaluated using our approach, showing a detection rate of 85.2% at 16 h and 96.3% at 24 h; the platform could reach a detection limit of 10(3)cfu/mL for the Candida spp. and 10(3) copies/mL for Aspergillus spp. DISCUSSION: The detection rate of the platform is much higher than the positive rates of concurrent blood cultures. This method bears substantial clinical application potential as it incorporates the microfluidic platform with low reagent consumption, automation, and low cost (about 10 dollars).