Dr. Sam Stewart, DVM from Ethos, describes the benefits of rapid POC diagnostics in veterinary medicine. Ethos will implement LexaGene‘s MiQLab to help deliver innovative evidence-based patient care.
Veterinary medicine has a significant need for in-clinic point-of-care (POC) tests that can deliver rapid, reference lab quality sensitivity and specificity data.
In the veterinary clinic setting, rapid point-of-care tests allow for accurate insights to be derived from the results, so clinicians have more confidence in their prescribed treatment plans. Furthermore, the rapid nature of this type of testing lends itself to producing results in real time, possibly while the patient is still in the hospital, removing the impact of time delays experienced with traditional reference laboratory testing methods. These innovations are on the cutting edge of both veterinary and human diagnostics.
THE NEED FOR FASTER RESULTS
In veterinary medicine, clinicians rely on available diagnostic technologies to confirm diagnoses and provide clinical insight into patient care. In the case of suspected bacterial infections, culture and susceptibility (C&S) tests are routinely ordered to provide definitive insight into the causative pathogens, and to determine whether antimicrobial resistance is present. Commonly, however, the need to make treatment decisions often precedes obtainment of the C&S results, requiring antibiotics to be prescribed empirically in order to address the suspected infection, improve the patient’s symptoms, and to give the client peace of mind that their pet has been offered
solutions-focused patient care. Once the C&S results are received, the empiric antibiotic selection is either confirmed as effective, or if resistance is demonstrated, the antibiotic is changed.
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The article is from fall 2020 IVC Journal vol. 10 issue 4.
