Surgeons Develop a Faster, Less Expensive Technique to Identify Bacterial Infections and Determine Antibiotic Resistance.
Surgeons at Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University in Detroit are developing a faster, less expensive method of identifying bacterial infections and determining their antibiotic resistance. Surgeons used a technology known as Raman spectroscopy to look at the bacteria’s infrared wavelengths and pinpoint unique patterns of molecular vibration in blood samples inoculated with Staphylococcus aureus, the bacteria that causes Staph infections. Raman spectroscopy enabled the researchers to distinguish the methicillin, sensitive S. aureus (MSSA) from methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) with 90.2 percent accuracy. They also could tell the difference between MRSA and its more stubborn form, RVS-MRSA, with 96.3 percent accuracy.
