. Significant differences were observed among the three groups (P < 0.001), and a significant linear trend was identified (P < 0.001). Furthermore, the fecal calprotectin concentrations and C T values were found to be correlated (r ؍ ؊0.658). Our results demonstrate that molecular screening of Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp., and Shigella spp./EIEC using the BD Max EBP assay will result in timely diagnosis and improved sensitivity. The determination of inflammatory markers, such as calprotectin, in fecal specimens may aid in the interpretation of PCR results, particularly for enteric pathogens associated with mucosal damage and colonic inflammation.A cute bacterial gastroenteritis is a common global health problem. Infections with Salmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., and Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) are spread to humans from animal reservoirs. In contrast, humans are the primary reservoir of Shigella spp. These four microorganisms are the most commonly reported enteric bacterial pathogens responsible for community-acquired diarrhea (1, 2). Conventional bacterial stool culturing is considered the traditional gold standard for diagnosis of the most common bacterial pathogens (3, 4), and current guidelines recommend one to two culture specimens for adult patients and one specimen for pediatric patients (5). Fresh stool specimens should be transported to the laboratory and processed within 2 h of collection (6, 7). If the specimen cannot be processed within 2 h, it should be placed in a transport medium to preserve the viability of bacterial pathogens, particularly Shigella and Campylobacter. Antibiotics administered at the time of specimen collection may compromise the outcome of stool culturing (8).Several novel molecular assays for detecting enteric bacterial pathogens in stool specimens have been developed. These assays are very specific, and their sensitivities are superior to those of conventional methods (3,7,9,10). Among these tests, the BD Max enteric bacterial panel (EBP) is an FDA-cleared, multiplex PCR assay designed for the detection of Salmonella spp., Shigella spp./enteroinvasive E. coli (EIEC), Campylobacter spp. (Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli), and Shiga-like toxin genes (stx 1 and/or stx 2 ) in preserved and unpreserved stool specimens using the BD Max system (BD Diagnostics, Allschwil, Switzerland). The BD Max system is a walkaway PCR instrument that can extract, amplify, and detect nucleic acids in batches of up to 24 samples within 3 h, requiring less than 2 min of hands-on time per sample (11).In this study, we aimed to achieve the following: (i) to evaluate the performance of molecular testing compared with that of conventional culture methods in a privately owned clinical microbiology laboratory, currently serving approximately 2,200 hospital beds and several hundred physicians in private practice; (ii) to study the association between the relative bacterial load, as assessed using the threshold cycle (C T ) values of pathogen-specific PCR targets, and the...