Patent ID: 8679739

Claim:
A method for diagnostic analyses to identify pathogens including viruses, bacteria or other micro-organisms present in a biological sample and responsible for an infection, comprising: a first step of measuring and continuously monitoring a turbidity and/or a concentration of pathogens in a liquid culture medium into which a biological sample to be analyzed has been inoculated and in which a replication of the pathogens possibly present occurs, wherein an instrumental reading technique is used to measure and continuously monitor the turbidity and/or the concentration of the pathogens, and said measuring and monitoring are carried out dynamically during the replication of the pathogens growing in the culture medium; and a second step of identifying the pathogens by taking at least an aliquot of the liquid culture medium containing the biological sample directly obtained from the first step, which has reached a desired turbidity value according to a standardized value scale, and/or of a desired concentration of the pathogens, and using a mass spectrophotometric identification technique to identify the pathogens in the aliquot, wherein the mass spectrophotometric identification technique involves calibration depending on the measurement results of the first step; wherein during the first step, said desired turbidity value and/or the desired concentration of the pathogens is preliminarily selected on the basis of the specific needs which, on each occasion, are identified in order to carry out the second identification step, and wherein in the first step, a time needed to obtain a desired turbidity value and/or a desired concentration of the pathogens is shorter for pathogens that are responsible for the infection than that of other contaminating pathogens, and a time needed for pathogens to adapt to the environment in said biological sample and to manifest growth is shorter for the pathogens that are responsible for the infection than that of the other contaminating pathogens such that the identification in the second step is independent from the presence of said other contaminating pathogens in the biological sample.