Performance of Direct Identification and EUCAST Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing in Bloodstream Infections Using Sepsityper® and Disk Diffusion Methods

Background/Objectives: Rapid pathogen identification and targeted antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) in bloodstream infections are critical to reducing sepsis-related mortality. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of direct MALDI-TOF MS identification using the rapid Sepsityper® kit and to determine the diagnostic accuracy and reliability of the EUCAST Rapid Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (RAST) protocol at various incubation periods (4, 6, 8, and 16-20 h) from positive blood culture bottles.