NCI recognizes centers around the country that meet rigorous standards for transdisciplinary, state-of-the-art research focused on developing new and better approaches to preventing, diagnosing, and treating cancer. There are 72 NCI-designated cancer centers in the United States.

Rapid antibiotic susceptibility test results (AST) are especially critical for treatment of oncology patients with bacteremia. Approximately 1 in 5 cancer patients require hospitalization due to infection. Antimicrobial resistance in Gram-negative pathogens is approximately 1.5 times higher in cancer patients than in non-cancer patients. The NCI-designated cancer center will be evaluating Q-linea’s Gram-negative positive blood culture panel.
 
Infection is the second leading cause of death in cancer patients. Loss of efficacy in antibiotics due to antibiotic resistance in bacteria is therefore an urgent threat. Each hospitalization due to febrile neutropenia after chemotherapy can cost upwards of $60,000.

Q-linea looks forward to the opportunity to improve the quality of care for oncology patients with Gram-negative bacteremia by providing rapid AST results that will enable clinicians to reduce the time to optimal antimicrobial therapy. 
 
References 

1. NCI-Designated Cancer Centers – NCI, accessed 28 September 2024 
2. Nanayakkara AK, Boucher HW, Fowler VG, Jezek A, Outterson K, Greenberg DE. Antibiotic resistance in the patient with cancer: Escalating challenges and paths forward. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 2021;71(6):488-504. doi:10.3322/caac.21697 
3. Gupta, V. Burden of Antimicrobial Resistance in Hospitalized Patients with Cancer: A Multicenter Analysis. Poster presented at: ASM-ESCMID 2023 Joint Conference on Drug Development to Meet the Challenge of Antimicrobial Resistance (ASM-ESCMID) 19 – 22 September 2023 in Boston, MA USA.