Attributable costs of patients with candidemia and potential implications of polymerase chain reaction-based pathogen detection on antifungal therapy in patients with sepsis.

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to calculate attributable costs of candidemia in patients with severe sepsis and to obtain preliminary data regarding the potential effects of polymerase chain reaction-based pathogen detection on antifungal therapy for these patients.

Methods: Patients treated between 2004 and 2010 because of severe sepsis were included into this retrospective analysis. The hospital management provided annual fixed costs per patient-day; data for variable intensive care unit costs were taken from the literature. Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used (VYOO, SIRS-Lab, Jena, Germany) for pathogen detection in the blood.

Results: Thirty-two patients with candidemia were identified. Of 874 patients with sepsis, propensity score matching found 32 corresponding patients with sepsis but without candida infection but similar risk factors for developing candidemia. Attributable costs of candidemia were 7713.79 Euro (cost increase, 19.4%). Initiation of antifungal therapy was reduced from 67.5 (52.4, 90) hours in the group, where candida infection was determined by blood culture, to 31.0 (28.0, 37.5; P < .01) hours after detection by multiplex PCR.

Conclusions: Candidemia increases costs of care in patients with septic shock. Polymerase chain reaction-based pathogen detection significantly reduces the time to initiation of antifungal therapy. This might impact on the clinical course of the disease but need to be confirmed in further trials.