[HN Gopher] 'Fingerprint' ML Technique Identifies Different Bact...
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'Fingerprint' ML Technique Identifies Different Bacteria in Seconds
Author : NotAWorkNick
Score : 25 points
Date : 2022-03-06 12:52 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.kaist.ac.kr)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.kaist.ac.kr)
| throwthere wrote:
| I 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.
| chewbacha wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
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