Determining the Likelihood of Blood Culture Positivity in Sepsis in One Hour Using SeptiCyte RAPID

Sunday, March 22, 2026

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM Central Time

Location: Connections Central - RST 14

Roy F. Davis, MD, PhD, MHA (he/him/his)

Immunexpress Inc., Washington

Disclosure(s): Immunexpress, Seattle: Consultant (Ongoing)
KN

Krupa A. Navalkar, PhD

Director of Bioinformatics
Immunexpress, Washington

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AW

Alyse Wheelock, MD

Research Physician
ACESO

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MG

Melissa Gregory, BS MS

Laboratory Lead
ACESO

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DC

Danielle L. Clark, PhD

Director & Co-Founder of ACESO
ACESO, Washington

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HK

Hannah Kibuuka, MBchB, MMed, MPH

Executive Director MUWRP
MUWRP

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SO

Stephen Okello, MD

Program Manager
JMEDICC

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AW

Abdullah Wailagala, MBchB

Program Manager
Global health Security, Infectious Disease Institute

Disclosure information not submitted.
PW

Peter Waitt, MBchB

Medical Doctor
Infectious Disease Institute

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FK

Francis L. Kakooza, PhD

Head of Global Health Security Infectious Disease Institute
Infectious Disease Institute, Washington

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GO

George Oduro, FRCS, FCEM(UK), FGCS

Emergency Medicine Directorate
Accident & Emergency Center, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital

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NA

Nehkonti Adams, MD

Director of Clinical Trials Center
United States Navy

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MD

Maximilian Dietrich, PD Dr. med, DESAIC

Specialist, Department of Anesthesiology
University of Heidelberg

Disclosure information not submitted.
Mv

Maik von der Forst, Dr. MHBA, DESAIC

Specialist, Department of Anesthesiology
University of Heidelberg

Disclosure information not submitted.
SB

Soeren Becker, Prof. Dr med, Dr phil

Director, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene
University of Saarland

Disclosure information not submitted.
SB

Sophia Benthien, MD

Researcher
University of Saarland

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Jg

Jose garnacho-Montero, MD

Head of Clinical ICU
Hospital Virgen Del Rocio

Disclosure information not submitted.
MB

Maria luisa Bulnes, MD

Associate Professor CIS
Hospital Virgen Macarena

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RB

Robert Balk, MD

Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine
Rush University Medical Center

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SA

Sharon Atukunda, BSc

Biomedical Laboratory Technology, Facilitator/ Laboratory Technician
JMEDICC-Joint Mobile Emerging Disease Clinical Capability

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Introduction: Direct pathogen detection technologies, such as multiplexed PCR [1-5] or the CANARY system [6], are important in military & civilian applications but are not available commercially. Host-response assays, such as SeptiCyte RAPID, are complementary by detecting immune dysfunction in response to blood-stream infections (BSI) leading to sepsis. Advantages of this assay include short turnaround time (TaT, 1 hr) and being pathogen agnostic [7] whereas blood cultures take 13-30 hrs to become positive & have a low yield. This work evaluates the performance of SeptiCyte RAPID in blood culture positive (BC+) sepsis patients from multiple hospitals in the US, Europe & Africa [8].

Methods: The study comprised 205 BC+ sepsis patients from a cohort of 1061 patients suspected of sepsis. Sepsis adjudication for the entire cohort was done retrospectively by external panelists or treating physicians using sepsis-2 or 3 criteria. The control group were either classified as Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome / Inflammation or No-Sepsis; Indeterminates (n=53) were excluded. A blood sample was drawn for SeptiCyte RAPID within the first day of admission. SeptiCyte RAPID reports a likelihood of sepsis on a scale of 0-15 (SeptiScore) falling into four bands and is available on a near-patient platform. Blood cultures were collected if they were deemed clinically necessary.

Results: From 205 BC+ sepsis patients, 84 were Gram+, 107 were Gram- & 14 were mixed (both Gram+ & Gram-). The ROC-AUC for differentiating all BC+ sepsis vs. SIRS (n=356) was 0.90, for Gram+ 0.88, for Gram- 0.92, for mixed (Gram+ & Gram-) 0.87, & for Gram+ (S.aureus only) 0.88. For multi-drug resistant ESKAPE pathogens (n=54) (E. faecium, S. aureus, K. pneumoniae, A. baumannii, P. aeruginosa, Enterobacter spps.) [9], AUC was 0.91.

Conclusions: SeptiScore correlated to likelihood of blood culture positivity regardless of Gram-status. Most BC+ sepsis patients had high SeptiScores (93.7% in Bands 3/4) including those positive for ESKAPE pathogens. These results, in combination with a short TaT and using near-patient technology, suggest that SeptiCyte RAPID can be used to guide blood culture practice such as implementing blood culture orders for patients presenting with high SeptiScores if not originally drawn.