Clinical utility of genetic testing in diagnosis of infectious diseases in our hospital

Abstract

Genetic testing can provide comprehensive information of a causative pathogen of infectious disease including its virulence and drug resistance, allowing for tailored interventions and improvement of health outcome in patient. Despite its benefits for the diagnosis and treatment of infectious disease, the introduction of genetic testing lacked widespread use beyond general medical facilities because of technical and cost consideration. However, as the outbreak of COVID-19 forced many clinical facilities to introduce various gene-testing equipment, the knowledge and techniques acquired for the identification of SARS-CoV-2 genetic testing might be utilized for the diagnosis of various infectious diseases even after the epidemic is over. Since 2016, our hospital has accepted requests for the genetic testing of various pathogenic microorganisms from medical institutions in the Kinki region to support the treatment of infectious diseases in community medicine. In this article, we report the usefulness of genetic testing and our efforts to provide rapid and accurate test results to help the treatment of infectious diseases. We also introduce examples of the clinical cases including surgical site infection that were diagnosed by genetic testing.