Researchers of the Duke University is currently working on a new blood test which can detect if the respiratory problem is a bacterial or viral infection. The study aims to reduce the inappropriate use of antibiotics and provide fast proper diagnosis and medication.
The test is done by getting a print of the immune system or how the genes in the system are changing to combat the virus. This is a new way to diagnose infections compared to how experimental treatments are nowadays.
If this experimental study turn out successful, it gives a new advantage for doctors in tracking new epidemics or viruses like the MERS that suddenly spread in Middle East countries.
Geoffrey Ginsburg, lead author of the study and a genomic medicine chief from Duke, and his colleagues conducted the trial in 102 people and had evidence of it being effective.
Nowadays laboratory tests do not always provide accurate results and sometimes could not detect infections. Sometimes bacteria are attempted to be cultivated in the blood samples in order to determine if bacteria is the culprit. The diagnosis then becomes similar to a hunt for existing pathogens in the patient, which becomes a very long search and sometimes result to unreliable guess.
Ginsburg together with his colleagues found 30 genes which are activated when a virus strikes. They also looked into blood samples of emergency patients who complained of fever.
The test scored an 89 percent accuracy rate in diagnosing the patients infected with a virus and performed better in determining whether the problem is bacterial or viral.
The only drawback was that the test took 12 hours to complete. Researchers are looking for ways to speed up the release of results similar to that of other laboratory tests.
The study was published in the Sept. 18 issue of the online journal Science Translational Medicine.
