Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine identifies pathogens of infectious diseases in 30 minutes

Doctors at the Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine are going to be able to determine the type of microorganism that caused an infection in between 20 and 30 minutes. Previously, this took a whole day. The research process became faster thanks to the latest equipment, a huge spectrometer. It significantly expanded the possibilities for identifying the pathogens of various infectious diseases and determining their resistance to antibiotic treatment. It’s going to be possible to discover whether certain medicine is effective against a microorganism in just seven hours. Such information is extremely important for doctors, since it allows them to choose the most effective treatment.

The new mass-spectrometer started to be used on 13 October at the hospital.

It is not for the first time that the most advanced technologies are being used to treat patients at the Sklifosovsky Research Institute for Emergency Medicine. Moreover, many of them are being developed and introduced into wide practice with the direct participation of the Institute's specialists. In particular, it was here that the experimental method of hyperbaric oxygenation (saturation of blood with oxygen in a pressure chamber) was created in Russia and then successfully used to treat COVID-19 patients. This method has already entered the national clinical guidelines and is being used in many hospitals in Russia.

In addition to this, the Institute is actively carrying out transfusion of donor plasma from people who recovered from the coronavirus. Such treatment is used when indicated and in many cases can at least halve the likelihood of a serious Covid-19 patient’s condition deteriorating.

The Sklifosovsky Institute for Emergency Medicine is the largest multidisciplinary scientific and practical centre dealing with emergency cases and operations. Resuscitation, concomitant and burns, urgent cardiology and acute poisoning are also dealt with on a major scale. It has created a unique system for assistance no matter what the category of a patient is.