– Data Presented at ICAAC 2015 Annual Meeting –
LEXINGTON, Mass., September 19, 2015 – T2 Biosystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTOO) a company developing innovative diagnostic products to improve patient health, today announced that data on its T2Candida® Panel was presented today at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) and the International Society of Chemotherapy (ICC) joint meeting in San Diego, CA. The data demonstrate that T2Candida is more sensitive and rapid than blood culture for monitoring invasive candidiasis in proven cases of infection.
“This study was designed to take repeated blood samples from patients over time to determine the sensitivity of T2Candida compared to blood culture for monitoring patients on antifungal therapy,” said Peter Pappas, M.D., FACP, professor of medicine, division of infectious diseases, University of Alabama at Birmingham and principal investigator of the study. “The findings indicate that T2Candida may be a useful tool for monitoring patients and could facilitate initiation of cessation of therapy as well as improving source control.”
“Previous studies have demonstrated that blood culture may yield false negative test results when patients are on antifungal therapy,” said John McDonough, president and CEO of T2 Biosystems. “The results from this study demonstrate that T2Candida can provide more accurate results for patients who are on antifungals which can enable physicians to make better treatment decisions regarding the duration of therapy and controlling the source of the infection, including catheterization procedures and other medical interventions known to cause the disease.”
About the Study
Twenty-three patients who had tested positive for a Candida infection using blood culture and had been administered antifungal therapy were enrolled in the study. The study compared the results of T2Candida and blood culture during the first week of treatment. Patient specimens were collected on the day of enrollment and days three, five and seven, provided that patients remained positive by either test method. Blood culture and T2Candida test results were compared to determine which method was most accurate for monitoring those patients.
Key findings:
• T2Candida demonstrated greater accuracy in detecting invasive candidiasis, or the presence of the Candida infection, delivering 17 positive results during the testing period for nine patients with candidemia who were receiving antifungal therapy, while blood culture delivered only three positive results within the same patient set.
• In one case, T2Candida identified a case of intra-abdominal candidiasis caused by Candida albicans that was not detected by multiple blood cultures.
• T2Candida may be a useful tool for detection, species identification, and patient monitoring for cases of candidemia and invasive candidiasis to facilitate initiation or cessation of therapy, as well as for controlling the source of the infection.
About The T2Candida Panel
The T2Candida Panel is the first sepsis pathogen diagnostic that provides species-specific results in three to five hours without the need for blood culture, which can take up to six days to provide a result. The rapid detection of Candida enables physicians to provide targeted treatment quickly, and research has shown this can reduce the length of stay in the hospital of a patient with Candida sepsis by almost nine days at a cost savings of approximately $26,887. A rapid negative result can prevent unnecessary administration of antimicrobials, further reducing costs. In addition, a rapid negative result can prevent or reduce antimicrobial resistance, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has designated a serious threat.
About Candida
Candidemia is a systemic fungal infection that occurs when Candida organisms in the blood spread to organs and tissues throughout the body. Candidemia is the fourth leading hospital-acquired bloodstream infection and the most lethal form of common bloodstream infection that causes sepsis, according to theCenter for Disease Control (CDC), with an approximate 40 percent mortality rate. In the absence of a rapid, accurate diagnostic, appropriate therapeutic intervention for candidemia is often delayed, resulting in a mortality rate that is three to four times higher than when early, targeted therapy is initiated. According to a study published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, the mortality rate can be reduced to 11 percent with the initiation of targeted therapy within 12 hours of presentation of symptoms. On average, candidemic patients require 40 days of hospitalization and have a hospital cost of $130,000.
About T2 Biosystems
T2 Biosystems is focused on developing innovative diagnostic products to improve patient health. With two FDA-cleared products targeting sepsis and a range of additional products in development, T2 Biosystems is an emerging leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics. The Company is utilizing its proprietary T2 Magnetic Resonance platform, or T2MR, to develop a broad set of applications aimed at lowering mortality rates, improving patient outcomes and reducing the cost of healthcare by helping medical professionals make targeted treatment decisions earlier. T2MR enables the fast and sensitive detection of pathogens, biomarkers and other abnormalities in a variety of unpurified patient sample types, including whole blood, eliminating the time-consuming sample prep required in current methods. For more information, please visit www.t2biosystems.com.
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