Evaluation of the Luminex xTAG-GPP (Gastrointestinal Pathogen Panel) in the diagnosis of diseases with acute diarrhoea.

Introduction: Most Microbiology laboratories use different techniques for the diagnosis of gastrointestinal infections. Some of which require at least 72 hours to obtain final results.

Material And Methods: The gastrointestinal panel Luminex (xTAG-GPP, Luminex Molecular Diagnostics, Toronto, Canada) is a qualitative multiplex fast and sensitive assay able to detect and to identify the 15 most common pathogens causing gastrointestinal infection simultaneously. We evaluated this multiplex panel comparing it with conventional methods used in our laboratory.

Results: We analyzed 225 samples of feces. Through the conventional methods were positive 74 samples (32.9%). Through the Luminex method were positive 137 samples (60.9%).

Conclusions: The use of the xTAG GPP system in Clinical Microbiology can improve the diagnosis of gastrointestinal infectious because it provides results in less than 8 hours. Some pathogens should be applied with caution and should be interpreted based on the patient́s clinical data.