Typing for life
routine typing of bacterial clones
Typing for Life is a routine typing service provided by the Dept. of Microbiology, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic. Due to its rapid and economic performance, it allows for continuous up-to-date monitoring of possible clonal spread of bacteria in clinical settings. The service is tailor-made according to the customer's preferences. Typically, we type bacterial isolates submitted by a customer on a weekly basis and dispatch typing results by e-mail latest 3 working days after receiving the isolates.
MONITOR
possible clonal spead of bacteria
PREVENT
future spread
SAVE
lives, time, workload
What do our results tell you ?
Let's say you will provide us with e.g., 8 Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates recovered from different patients from the same hospital ward (typically ICU) during 1 or 2 weeks of monitoring/clinical diagnostics. In case our typing reveals all of them to be different, there is no suspect clonal spread of this species during that time. On the contrary, when we don't see any distict difference between a pair of isolates (or even more), these should belong to the same clone and were transmitted between the patients, or, they come from a common source in the hospital environment. Because we use a rapid and economic typing technique (not an ultimate WGS-based comparison), it can also happen that we do not see any difference between two bacterial isolates, which in fact are different, only out of our resolving power. Based on experience from real use in clinical settings, such false-positives represent less than 5% of suspect clonality cases suggested by our technique. Therefore, our typing data just need to be interpreted carefully, taking the clinical context and other information available into account, which is nothing new for clinicians. Our service can also serve as a screening step to avoid unnecessary application of costly and time-consuming advanced typing techniques to isolates that can be revealed as different by our economic and rapid approach.
At this moment, we accept isolates of all clinically relevant non-fastidious gram-negative bacteria for typing, Klebsiella, Enterobacter, Escherichia, Pseudomonas, and Acinetobacter spp. in particular.
Curious ? interested ?
JUST TRY IT - you won't pay anything for the test, literally... New customers are eligible for testing up to 96 bacterial isolates free of charge, contact us.
CONSIDER potential usefulness and costs of our service for you - are there 2 or more patients showing new infection/colonisation by the same gram-negative bacterial species within e.g. 2 weeks at your ICU? Want to know whether they are clonal?
Pricing is very simple - 15 Euro per isolate (incl. VAT). Delivery costs need to be covered by the customer because these vary upon distance and customer's choice. Discounts available for regular customers.
DO NOT HESITATE TO CONSULT – we offer on-line discussion followed by on-place consulting to share our experience in the field to best adjust our service to your needs.
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT ?
Our experience shows significant differences between different types of wards and hospitals in the frequency of suspect clonal spread revealed by our technique. This variability also includes the spectrum of species spread and the conclusiveness of results in particular clinical settings. Biggest benefits can be expected in smaller ICUs, where results are easier to interpret - typically, 50% or more cases of suspect clonal spread suggested by our technique can be matched with plausible and likely true mode of spread in such settings. At such type of units, we have observed up to 50% reduction of suspect clonal spread when typing results were reflected in targeted reinforcement of preventive measures. Large, open space ICUs that take care of a wide spectrum of critical patients are at the other end of possible clear conclusiveness. Nevertheless, despite that, continuous monitoring of clonal spread enables evidence-based evaluation of true benefits of any reinforcement of preventive measures even in such settings.
And - what's the most important in the era of MDR bacteria - with routine typing you will be able to notice a potential outbreak as early as at the moment of the appearance of the first pair of clonal isolates in two different patients at your ICU...