Israeli researchers have developed a rapid method to identify bacterial pathogens in urinary tract infections (UTI) patient, Ben Gurion University (BGU) in southern Israel said, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
UTI is a common infection that causes pain and discomfort, and if left untreated, it can lead to complications such as permanent kidney damage and blood contamination.
In today's common urine culture test, it usually takes three days to determine the bacterium species and its resistance to antibiotics.
The novel method, however, enables detection of bacterial pathogens and their antibiotics resistance directly from urine samples in 30-40 minutes, BGU said.
The new technology combines measurements of the infrared spectrum of the infecting bacteria with machine learning algorithms.
The method has been tested on over 1,000 urine samples and was able to discriminate between bacterial species with 97 percent accuracy and determine bacterial susceptibility to various antibiotics with about 85 percent accuracy, BGU added.