Pneumonia can be fatal

Pneumonia, a leading cause of death in critically ill patients, increases the length of hospitalization by an average of 5.5 days and adds significantly to the cost of hospital care by approximately $40,000. Diagnosis is difficult and patients are frequently over-treated empirically with broad-spectrum antibiotics due to delayed definitive diagnosis. Therefore, early diagnosis of life-threatening bacterial lower respiratory infections is crucial for optimal treatment and prevention strategies.

“Unyvero provides clinicians earlier data to inform antimicrobial decisions, especially in critically ill COVID patients”1

  • 50% of patients that died from COVID-19 had secondary infections2
  • Mechanical ventilation exacerbates the risk of bacterial infections3
  • Reported co-infections include Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, Mycoplasma and Legionella4

Unyvero LRT Panels

The FDA-cleared Unyvero LRT panels enable unique and comprehensive detection of the most clinically relevant pathogens and antibiotic resistance markers that cover more than 90% of the most common causative agents of pneumonia, providing clinicians with rapid diagnostic results to enable earlier targeted treatment and drive better patient outcomes.

  • Tests direct from native specimen, no growth required
  • Sample-to-answer under 5 hours, just 2 minutes of hands-on time
  • Simultaneously tests for 30 targets that can cause pneumonia, including Pneumocystis jirovecii
  • Simple, clear, qualitative results based on defined cut-offs
  • Actionable results for faster targeted antibiotic therapy

Microorganisms chart

*The Unyvero LRT BAL is the first and only FDA-cleared panel that includes Pneumocystis jirovecii.

Unyvero LRT Panels provide results days faster than culture, reducing clinician wait time to optimize antibiotic therapy

Pneumonia is often treated empirically with antibiotics. The slow turn-around-time of current laboratory methods may lead to delays in appropriate antimicrobial therapy, potentially contributing to patient harm and to rising costs of healthcare and excessive use of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

As with other serious infections, the key for effective treatment is the early diagnosis of pathogens and associated resistance markers. This allows targeted treatment, better use of available antibiotics, decreased length of hospital stays, and lower healthcare costs.

The Unyvero LRT panel approach simultaneously identifies a broad spectrum of clinically relevant pathogens and antibiotic resistance markers associated with lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia in less than 5 hours directly from native specimen.

Comprehensive results in a single rapid test.

What if you could reduce unnecessary treatment and length of stay for pneumonia patients?

  • Pneumonia is among the top 10 most costly reasons for US hospitalization
  • Increases ICU and overall hospital LOS by 5.5 days or longer
  • $2,538 cost per day during an admission
  • Delayed or inappropriate diagnosis contributes to health economics burden
  • Bacterial culture takes an average of 2.7 days to yield final results
  • Only about 15% of patients are appropriately treated based on their culture results

The Unyvero System provides results under 5 hours and can help improve the management of these patients.

What if you could de-escalate >65% of antibiotics used for lower respiratory infections within 5 hours of testing?

A large multi-site study of >600 clinical cases showed that two-thirds of antibiotic courses could have been de-escalated with Unyvero LRT:

UnyveroLRT infographic

  • Unyvero LRT had consistently very high negative predictive value of 97.9%
  • Significant number of de-escalations can be made with high degree of clinical confidence when MRSA or aeruginosa is not detected by LRT Panel
  • De-escalation strategy can also be advantageous for other organisms that are detected by the LRT panel (Legionella, Pneumocystis, Mycoplasma, Chlamydia)
  • Timely and appropriate diagnosis of pneumonia is important for optimal antibiotic coverage, including secondary bacterial infections in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

What if you could identify the most common HAP/VAP pathogens in <5 hours with only 2 minutes hands on time?

The FDA-cleared Unyvero LRT Panels:

  • Test direct from specimen; no growth required
  • Identify pathogens not covered by empiric therapy and include 10 resistance markers
  • Easy to identify multi-pathogen infections
  • Detect more potential pathogens missed by culture including Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Chlamydia pneumoniae, Legionella pneumophila, and Pneumocystis jirovecii*
  • Not impacted by prior antibiotics

*included on the LRT BAL panel

The Unyvero LRT panels enable you to enhance your standard of care testing, providing you and your healthcare providers with rapid diagnostic results to enable earlier targeted treatment and drive better patient outcomes.


More Information:

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  1. Tellapragada C, et al. The Unyvero Hospital-Acquired pneumonia panel for diagnosis of secondary bacterial pneumonia in COVID-19 patients. EJCMID. 2021.
  2. Zhou F. et al. Clinical course and risk factors for mortality of adult inpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China: a retrospective cohort study. Lancet 2020; 395:1054–62.
  3. Xing Q. et al. Precautions are needed for COVID-19 patients with coinfection of common respiratory pathogens. Lancet. D-20-02813.
  4. Chen N. et al. Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study. Lancet 2020; 395:507-13.