AdventHealth physician and team develop a new test to quickly detect brain-eating amoebas

After three years of research and development, an AdventHealth physician and clinical team created a new test to diagnose a brain-eating amoeba within three hours.

WHY IT MATTERS:

Identifying and treating this condition is extremely time-sensitive and difficult, as the amoeba kills its host in only 3-7 days and previous testing routinely took up to six days. This means patients often died before tests could confirm the presence of an amoeba or treatment could begin.

Now, physicians at the AdventHealth Central Florida Division can receive results in a few hours, allowing the clinical team to begin treatment more quickly. In addition, AdventHealth physicians in other southern states can get results in roughly 24 hours from specimen receipt at the Orlando campus.

AdventHealth physician and team develop a new test to quickly detect brain-eating amoebas

The AdventHealth clinical team spent three years in the lab researching and developing this new brain-eating amoeba test that can produce results within three hours.

Reflecting on the impact of this groundbreaking new test developed at AdventHealth, Jose Alexander, M.D., clinical microbiologist and director of microbiology, virology and immunology for AdventHealth Orlando, answered several questions about the severity of brain-eating amoebas, what makes this new test different and what led him on this journey of innovation.

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For physicians with medical staff privileges at AdventHealth, this new test is currently available in Epic as “Amoeba Screen, CSF.” For physicians at AdventHealth locations not yet on Epic, the test is available as a send out to AdventHealth Orlando as a reference laboratory. All other physicians can contact Jose Alexander, M.D. at jose.alexander@adventhealth.com for more information or for potential cases.


BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA FACTS:
  • The brain-eating amoeba, also known as Naegleria fowleri, is one of several growing health concerns across the U.S. It kills more than 97% of people infected due to delays in identifying and treating the illness.
  • Testing has been very imprecise, slow, cumbersome and unreliable for identifying exactly which amoeba has infected a patient (which dictates the specific treatment needed).
  • Historically, testing takes 3-6 days, while the amoeba kills its host in only 3-7 days. In most cases, test results reveal the presence of this amoeba only after the patient has already died.
  • There are only five known survivors of this infection in North America. One survivor, Sebastian DeLeon, was treated in 2016 at AdventHealth for Children.
  • While the fatality rate is extremely high, cases do not occur in quantities that are profitable for lab companies to invest in the research and development to improve testing.
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