A blood test is being developed so that it can predict whether patients with Covid will need intensive care or if they are likely to survive as soon as symptoms appear.
This test can enable doctors to direct intensive treatment to the most needy patients by increasing their chances of survival.
Earlier this year, East-based biochemist Markus Ralser and colleagues identified 27 proteins in the blood of Covid-19 patients that were present at varying levels depending on the severity of the symptoms. Since then, they have followed 160 patients with Covid whose blood was tested when they were hospitalized to explore if they could predict disease progression through protein.
"The idea is to provide doctors with a 'digital image' of how sick a patient is - something you can't necessarily say just by looking at them - which can help treat them. "For example, in the case of Covid-19, there is a phenomenon called 'happy hypoxia', which means that a patient may feel relatively well, but then get worse quickly."
So far, the test has been used in 24 seriously ill patients, where it accurately predicted the result for 18/19 people who survived and for 5/5 patients who died.
The next step is to validate the test in hospitals in the UK, US and Germany. These studies are expected to begin in the coming weeks and data from them will need to be submitted to health regulators before the tests become available.
Source: Guardian
