'Fingerprint' ML Technique Identifies Different Bacteria in Seconds
news.kaist.ac.krI guess the clinical relevance depends on how well you can tailor treatment based on it. AFAIK if docs don't know a) the specific bug and [1] b) its antibiotic resistance and c) the patient is seriously or potentially going to be seriously ill they start out with broad spectrum anyway.[2]
Since the fingerprint technique doesn't tell you antibiotic resistance the real benefit is probably identifying rare bugs early and to some degree avoiding broad-spectrum stuff and slowing down the sort of antibiotic resistance bacteria develop over a population over time.
[1] Docs can genrally guess the type of bug, or at least the class of bug, and even "narrow-spectrum" antibiotics can cover multiple classes
[2] For less serious infections docs go by likelihood tables and population features (ie-- UTIs are generally killed by X in this region of the world/country). If that treatment fails, they try another one.
I’m even less impressed because it looks like for their tests they used a rod and a cocci which are pretty different morphologically. If it could differentiate between group a and b strep or staph id be very impressed.
But also; many times it’s not just the antibiotic resistance but virulence that’s mediated by a plasmid and there are any visual distinctions. The effect would be biochemical in nature so a visual analysis would provide limited benefit.