In clinical diagnostic laboratories, the early detection of bacteria directly impacts early reporting of clinical results and thus patient care. APAS® technology is an advanced artificial intelligence platform used to automate culture plate interpretation. The growth of four well characterised VRE strains (E. faecium ATCC 700221, E. faecalis ATCC 51299, E. faecium ATCC 51858, E. faecalis NCTC 12201) were monitored over a period of 48 hours utilising Thermo Fisher Brilliance VRE agar and APAS Compact. The aim of the study was to compare how early APAS® could reliably detect VRE positive plates when compared to a routine microbiologist read.

A total of 1,152 images were taken per isolate preparation. APAS® and microbiologist assessment were performed on images at every 30-minute timepoint. The results demonstrated that the earliest time the APAS® technology detected consistent VRE growth was approximately 13 hours after incubation and that variability existed in the way microbiologists designated positive or negative plates. The study demonstrated that a significant reduction in reading time for VRE chromogenic agar plates may be possible using APAS®. The results suggest that APAS® can assist in early reads of VRE culture plates and contribute to improved infection control surveillance.

Poster Presentation: Clever Culture Systems

‍Conference: ECCMID 2021, Online

‍Date: July 2021

‍Authors: Morales, M., DeYoung, B., Giglio, S., Wisplinghoff, H. and Green, R.

‍Citation: Morales, M., DeYoung, B., Giglio, S., Wisplinghoff, H. and Green, R. 2021. Introducing artificial intelligence for early Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci culture reads with APAS®. ECCMID 2021. Onilne.