Accuracy of Metagenomic Blood Sampling to Identify Pathogen in Infective Endocarditis Patients

Plain-language summary

Infective Endocarditis is an infection, usually a bacterium, which attacks the heart and can cause valves to leak and produces a bacterial mass which can break off from the valves and block the blood supply to important organs. We are very keen to improve the treatment of this disease and we are measuring the impact of the treatments that we give to patients so that we have a very clear idea of which treatments work best and also which treatments are less successful. A key part of the treatment is the accurate determination of the causative organism which allows appropriate targeted antibiotic and antifungal medication to be administered. Accurate antibiotic regimes require detection of the causative organism and its sensitivities to each antibiotic. Antibiotic choice is then based on effectiveness, toxicity, ease of use and national guidelines. The current best technique for identifying bacteria is blood culture where organisms are identified by growing them from blood samples. However, this takes up to 5 days from sampling, resulting in delays to the correct diagnosis. Until this time, treatment requires the use of generic, more toxic antibiotic regimes. New techniques are emerging to identify causative organisms from blood. Metagenomics allows the sequencing of bacterial DNA allowing precise identification of the infecting organism.

Who can participate

What they're measuring

Trial details