Technical Evaluation of a Whole Blood Rapid Test Measuring Procalcitonin (BRAHMS PCT Direct)

Procalcitonin (PCT) is a highly sensitive and specific marker which can be detected in the blood stream in response to a bacterial infection. In contrast to conventional infection disease markers PCT permits the differential diagnosis between bacterial and viral infections. The marker is implemented on Intensive Care Units (ICU) and Emergency Departments (ED) worldwide since 1996. Until now various technologies all basing on the use of serum or plasma samples are available in the market. BRAHMS GmbH (Clinical Diagnostics Division of Thermo Fisher Scientific) as manufacturer of the Procalcitonin assays has developed a new quantitative immunochromatographic whole blood point-of-care assay, the BRAHMS PCT direct. The test follows the principle of a sandwich assay with two anti-PCT antibodies, one immobilized on a nitrocellulose membrane and the tracer antibodies labeled with gold. Validation of the technical performance of the product under routine conditions with native patient samples. The clinical validation is planned as a method comparison to a reference method (BRAHMS PCT sensitive KRYPTOR, Elecsys BRAHMS PCT). The internal pre-studies were performed with blood samples spiked with recombinant PCT and with native patient samples. The primary objective of this study is to show a highest correlation between BRAHMS PCT direct with the PCT reference method for PCT- positive and negative samples. The secondary object of this study is to show the advantage of BRAHMS PCT direct in time to result in comparison to the reference method.