Molecular Detection's Detect-Ready MRSA assay has received its first independent validation in a study conducted at St George's Healthcare NHS Trust.
The study results were presented at HIS 2010, the seventh international conference of the Hospital Infection Society.
In a comparative study of the Detect-Ready assay and two other widely used PCR-based MRSA screening tests, the St George's researchers confirmed that the performance of the Detect-Ready MRSA assay was better than or equivalent to Becton Dickinson's Geneohm MRSA ACP Assay and Roche's Lightcycler MRSA Advanced Test.
Based on the results of this study, MDI's Detect-Ready is now used as the molecular assay of choice in the MRSA screening programs at St George's.
'The Detect-Ready MRSA kit provides a number of advantages, including software that provides non-subjective interpretation and straightforward reporting,' said Dr Cassie Pope, clinical scientist at St George's.
The inclusion of multiple gene targets in the Detect-Ready MRSA test appears to minimise false positive results, reducing unnecessary resource deployment and the inconvenience to patients wrongly labelled as MRSA positive,' said Kay Capaldi, chief biomedical scientist at St George's.
The Detect-Ready MRSA kit is a qualitative real-time PCR in vitro diagnostic test for the direct detection of MRSA nasal colonisation to aid in the prevention and control of MRSA infections in hospitals and other healthcare settings.
The proprietary technology in the Detect-Ready kits provides a differential diagnosis engine that produces highly accurate results.
Samples for testing are simple to obtain using nasal swabs and the assay's ready-to-use pre-mixed reagents require only the addition of patient sample to run the test, which provides results in less than three hours.
Detect-Ready kits are off-the-shelf room-temperature stabilised and require no refrigeration.
Detect-Ready kits are compatible with multiple rt-PCR platforms currently found in clinical laboratories, including the Roche Lightcycler, Qiagen Rotor-Gene and Cepheid Smartcycler.
The Detect-Ready MRSA assay kit has received the CE mark certification for sales in the EU.
