What would likely be much better than standard culture for this pathogen is a rapid DNA amplification detection test. It would give better, faster results and not require a blood culture medium or special handling.
H. influenzae Risk Elevated in Pregnancy, Linked to Adverse Outcomes — Physician’s First Watch
H. influenzae Risk Elevated in Pregnancy, Linked to Adverse Outcomes
By Amy Orciari Herman
Invasive Haemophilus influenzae infection is more common in pregnant than nonpregnant women and is associated with high risks for fetal loss and premature delivery, according to a JAMA study.
Researchers studied the incidence of laboratory-confirmed invasive H. influenzae among women of childbearing age in England and Wales from 2009 through 2012. Overall, the incidence was low, at 0.5 cases per 100,000 women. However, the incident rate ratio was 13 times higher among pregnant women than nonpregnant women, mostly due to unencapsulated disease.
Of 74 fetuses of women with unencapsulated H. influenzae, 58% were miscarried and 3% were stillborn. Of the liveborn pregnancies, one third were premature. Infection during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy seemed particularly risky, with 94% of such infections resulting in fetal loss.
The authors conclude that H. influenzae "is an important pathogen to identify early and treat rapidly" in pregnancy. They and an editorialist stress the importance of labs using culture media that support its growth.
Reader Comments (2)
On the contrary, I believe this to be the sort of situation in which nucleic acid amplification methods are at their least useful. Haemophilus influenzae is part of the normal microbial flora of the respiratory tract (and for that matter the genital tract), so just finding the organism means nothing. The important issue is invasive disease - that the organism is found in a sterile site, which was the criterion used in this study. Nucleic acid amplification methods, even if used on normally sterile specimens such as blood, would be way oversensitive, resulting in overdiagnosis and overtreatment.