ARIES MRSA Assay filed with the FDA for infectious disease detection

Luminex Corporation announced that the company submitted the ARIES MRSA Assay to the FDA for clearance on Friday, June 28, 2019. The assay is a real-time, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)-based, in vitro diagnostic test for the direct detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) DNA from nasal swabs in patients at risk for nasal colonization.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2016, there was approximately one case of MRSA for every 30 people in the U.S. This works out to around 10 million cases of MRSA in the US each year. Rapid molecular tests for organisms such as MRSA have the potential to aid physicians in reigning in the spread of antimicrobial resistance and the associated negative outcomes for both patients and healthcare facilities by reducing the unnecessary use of antimicrobial therapies, thus allowing for more effective patient management.