Test offers fast check of strep in pregnant women

BOSTON (Reuters) -- Doctors in Quebec said Wednesday that they have developed a test that can detect 97 percent of group B streptococcal infections in pregnant women within 45 minutes.

The standard test takes at least 36 hours.

Their finding, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is important because group B strep, found in up to 40 percent of pregnant women, is a leading cause of death among newborns.

In 1998, the infection struck an estimated 2,000 babies in the United States, producing tissue destruction, meningitis or pneumonia. That year, it killed about 100. Those that survive an infection face a higher risk of vision problems, hearing difficulties, and mental retardation.

Because of the threat, doctors routinely test pregnant women for group B strep. But if the woman has not been tested before delivery, the woman is usually given antibiotics as a precaution against the disease.

Instead of the 36-hour delay in getting results from the traditional test, the test developed by Dr. Michel Bergeron of Laval University and his colleagues required only 30 to 45 minutes, which means a woman can be tested while she's in labor.

"Since, in normal circumstances, labor and delivery take 2 to 18 hours," the researchers said, "this PCR assay should allow the detection of group B streptococci quickly enough" for antibiotics to be given to the fetus.

Because doctors would no longer have to automatically give antibiotics to women who have not been tested at the time of delivery, it would "reserve treatment for women and babies who actually need it," they concluded.

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