"With this test, you're going to be the hero." Roscoe Nelson, MD

April 24, 2018

“This is revolutionary. This is different. It’s unique. It’s the answer to what I’ve been looking for.”

We asked Roscoe Nelson, MD to share with us his experience in using MicroGen DX as a diagnostic tool to help patients dealing with infections, and his response was nothing short of enthusiastic.

“With this test,” he told us, “you’re going to be the hero a lot of times because before, I would have to go through, “Yes, your urine culture is negative. We’re going to treat you. We’re going to guess it’s this, we’re going to guess it’s that. We’re going to treat you.”

Since using MicroGen DX he has found the ability to be confident with his diagnosis. “Now, we come in and we say, “Look, this is what you have.” Oftentimes, this is not subtle.”

Dr. Nelson has been a practicing Urologist for almost twenty years, and has had to rely on traditional cultures to diagnose the cause of infections. Like a lot of doctors, Dr. Nelson found that cultures were simply unable to provide useful information, even giving no growths in situations when the patient clearly had an infection. “For years,” he told us, “we’ve been trusting urine cultures and trusting it when it says that there’s no bacteria there but the patients still were sick, the patients were still having symptoms. We were left without anything to do.”

Now that he’s been using MicroGen DX’s two part DNA diagnostics test instead of cultures, Dr. Nelson has found that he can make treatment decisions based on good information.

“Now, we have a tool that we can go back and say, “Look, there is a bacterial or a fungal etiology to your symptoms,”” Dr. Nelson told us. “There’s two parts to the report. There’s the PCR report portion and then there’s the next-gen sequencing. I wait for both of them to come back before I see the patient back. I don’t act on the first one, I wait for both of them.”

While the rapid PCR screening is a fast and accurate tool which provides useful information, Dr, Nelson elucidated the reasons why the Next Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS) is vital to making informed treatment decisions.

“One of the problems with PCR alone,” he explained, “is that if there are any genetic mutations, they can affect the PCR and the PCR may be negative. We’ll see patients with the next-gen sequencing showing these bacteria or fungus but it won’t show up on the PCR.”

Because PCR is so specific, sometimes species of bacteria gain mutations which make it hard for the PCR to identify them accurately, just as a scar on a finger may keep a finger print from being easy to identify even if the fingerprints are already on file. The NGS test is more capable of identifying species, even if they have mutations. This is one of the reasons why NGS is such an important component of the MicroGen DX test.

What has been added recently to the MicroGen DX test is the ability to identify eight common antibiotic resistance genes. If the mutations gained by the bacteria will cause a certain antibiotic to be ineffective against it, the lab report will warn the physician ahead of time, as Dr. Nelson explained.

“One of the nicer things that have been added recently,” Dr. Nelson told us, “are the gene resistant factors so we can look at the bacteria in the list. Although we don’t have a true sensitivity, we can look for genetic information that would induce resistance to organisms so we can select out which antibiotics we would choose to use.”

When asked what he would tell his colleagues about MicroGen Dx, Dr. Nelson said,

“I’ve really come to trust MicroGen DX.

It’s been so helpful in so many patients in my chronic cystitis, my chronic prostatitis, some of the elevated PSAs, the interstitial cystitis. It’s changed the life of so many patients that it’s become integral in my practice.”

Click here to watch this interview on our YouTube channel.

Roscoe Nelson, MD
Arizona Center for Urology
6320 W. Union Hills Drive
Suite B-2600
Glendale, AZ 85308

(602) 942-5600 or 888-9PEEDOC

https://www.peedoc.com/dr-roscoe-nelson