Table 5.

Syndromic testing advantages and disadvantages

Factor	Advantages	Disadvantages
Quality	Generates high volumes of data, which can be used to access background distribution in specific patient groups and to help link clinical relevance.	Challenges in designing assays that allow for a greater number of targets within a single thermal protocol may result in reduced sensitivity.
	Fewer freeze–thaw cycles impacting sample quality as multiple targets are tested simultaneously.	Inter-platform differences can impact interpretation of results.
		Additional quality and employee competences.
		Reduced flexibility for variation in target organisms.
Turnaround time	Low time-to-result and hands-on time.	Limited number of samples per hour (lower throughput).
	Enables optimized and rapid patient management decisions.	Turnaround time is still limited by sample collection time.
	Provides fast answers to hospital ward outbreaks.
	Relief for the patient and unnecessary treatment.
	High initial implementation costs can be compensated by the reduction of unnecessary antimicrobials or isolation.
High number of targets	Reduced need for continuous sampling and further testing.	Most targets will not have any specific treatment options.
	Provides the clinician with more clinical information to make an informed therapeutic decision.	Challenges in clinical relevance and pathogen association with disease.
	Can detect pathogens which have a rare or new pathogenicity and seasonality.	A higher number of targets could increase the probability for false positive results.
	Specific patient populations such as transplant recipients would benefit from a broad-spectrum panel.	Addition of multiple targets could result in insurance challenges or greater reimbursement costs.