Background: Infectious gastroenteritis is a common cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The FilmArray GI panel (GIP) is a multiplex PCR assay that can rapidly detect 21 gastrointestinal pathogens, including 13 bacteria, 5 viruses, and 4 parasites. The GIP has high sensitivity and specificity for most targets and has been widely adopted in clinical practice. We aim to study the use of this test in hospitalized adult patients at multiple tertiary care centers affiliated to one health system.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review study of hospitalized adults who underwent GIP testing from May 5, 2018, to January 7, 2023 and abstracted data including patients’ age, gender, race, ethnicity, total number of patients who underwent testing, number of patients with positive testing, and organisms detected in the patients with positive testing along with hospital services that served these patients.
Results: Total of 6053 GIP tests were performed on 5786 hospitalized adult patients. The mean age of the cohort was 62.3 years with standard deviation of 17.9 years. 3029 (52.4%) were female and 2755 (47.6%) were males while 2 were unknown gender. Please see Table 1 attached. Out of the 6053 GIP tests, 2129 tests had positive results with 1 or more organisms being detected over 1862 hospitalizations. Clostridium Difficile Toxin was positive 1070 (50.3%) times, Enteropathogenic Escherichia Coli (EPEC) was positive 277 (13.0%) times, Norovirus GI was positive 297 (14.0%) times and other organisms which included rest of the 18 organisms were positive 485 (22.78) times. Amongst the positive cohort, fever defined as temperature greater than 100.4 F was present 649 (34.9%) times. The GIP test was most commonly ordered by Internal Medicine related services, and this group also had the most positive tests followed by Transplant group services. Please see Table 2 attached.
Conclusions: Hospitalized patients frequently suffer from gastrointestinal infections (GIP). Clostridium difficile is the most common cause, responsible for 50% of the cases. Other pathogens, such as E coli and norovirus, account for another 25%. Patients with GIP are more likely to have fever than those without. Further research is needed to identify other factors that can help optimize the use of diagnostic tests for GIP.
