This study is a prospective, multicenter, integrated trial designed to evaluate, from the perspectives of diagnostic performance and clinical utility, whether a diagnostic and treatment strategy based on the NuRapid-CRISPR rapid pathogen detection technology can reduce the 28-day all-cause mortality rate in patients with sepsis or septic shock in the ICU, compared to traditional pathogen culture.
The study consists of two parts:
1. Diagnostic Accuracy Study: For all enrolled sepsis patients, microbiological specimens will undergo concurrent blinded testing, with NuRapid-CRISPR serving as the test of interest and traditional pathogen culture as the reference standard. A prospective comparison will evaluate differences between the two methods in key metrics such as pathogen detection rate, sensitivity, specificity, and turnaround time.
2. Clinical Utility Cohort Study: All patients will undergo NuRapid-CRISPR testing as part of routine clinical care. Based on whether the rapid results are adopted clinically to guide early antimicrobial therapy decisions, the cohort will naturally form an exposure group (early treatment adjustments based on NuRapid-CRISPR results) and a control group (treatment primarily based on traditional culture results or empirical therapy). The study will prospectively compare the two groups in terms of the time to optimize antimicrobial therapy, coverage of the initial treatment spectrum, and infection-related clinical outcomes.