TAMPA, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire)— More people died of COVID last year than in 2020. New federal data reports the number of deaths in the U.S. caused by the virus topped more than 770,000, more than doubling the first year the virus spread throughout the country. What if doctors could know if you’re at higher risk? Could more lives be saved? As Ivanhoe reports, some researchers are working to save lives with a simple drop of blood. Blood test
“We came up with an analysis to try to distinguish the genes that can predict what are the patients who are going to progress and die from the disease,” explained Jose Herazo-Maya, MD, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.
These patients tend to have very scarred lungs, triggering an immune reaction very similar to the same scarring seen in patient who have a lung disease called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis or IPF.
Dr. Herazo-Maya continued, “If we could use the knowledge of IPF and apply it to COVID-19, to try to expedite the development of a good predictor test, or maybe even treatments, then that would’ve saved lives right in times and money too.”
Using a simple blood test from IPF patients, pulmonologist Jose Herazo-Maya found 52 genes that predicted a patient’s mortality. For COVID-19, 50 of those genes are matches.
If there’s red at the top, that patient has a high mortality rate. The accuracy is 73 percent.
“Basically, out of every four patients, you can predict mortality correctly in three. If you have a high-risk profile, that means that we have to be more aggressive with your care,” stated Dr. Herazo-Maya.
Allowing doctors to personalize treatment, drugs, and doses for each patient.
Larger clinical trials are underway and Dr. Herazo-Maya hopes to decrease the number of genes needed to be tested so this blood test could be used in any country around the world. This test could be available for use in the next two years.
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Producer; Roque Correa, Videographer; Roque Correa, Editor.
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MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS
RESEARCH SUMMARY
TOPIC: BLOOD TEST PREDICTS COVID DEATHS
REPORT: MB #5000
BLOOD TEST BACKGROUND: Blood tests allow doctors to look for certain diseases and conditions a patient may have. These tests can also check for any issues with patients’ organs and show whether any treatments the patient is on are working. It can also be used to diagnose disease like cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, anemia, and coronary heart disease. It can also assess how well your blood is clotting. Blood tests tend to be a routine procedure your doctor will perform to see how your body is working. Most tests don’t require any special preparations, although some do require you to fast for eight to 12 hours.
(Source: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/blood-tests)
BLOOD TEST PROCEDURE: A phlebotomist will use a needle to take a sample of blood. Then your sample is sent to a lab where trained technicians run tests that were ordered by your doctor. It may take a week or more to receive the results via your healthcare provider. Types of bloods tests are: complete blood count, also called a CBC, blood chemistry tests, blood enzyme tests, and blood tests for heart disease risk. The most common types of blood tests that your provider may order from the lab assess how well organs such as your kidneys, liver, heart, or thyroid are working, help diagnose diseases such as cancer, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and HIV/AIDS, find out if your medicine is working to make you better, diagnose bleeding or clotting disorders, find out if your immune system is having problems fighting infections, diagnose anemia, such as iron-deficiency anemia, pernicious anemia, aplastic anemia, or hemolytic anemia, find variations in hemoglobin such as hemoglobin S, C, or E, which are common in people of African, Mediterranean, or Southeast Asian background, monitor chronic health conditions and diseases and find health problems in their early stages.
(Source: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/blood-test)
BLOOD TEST NEW TECHNOLOGY: Since a simple blood test can reveal all of the above about your current health status, it remains one of the easiest ways to check on your general health. Now, with COVID-19, a new method for identifying a specific illness from blood samples is being used more frequently. It relies on the correlation between the immune response and specific pathogens. Scientists think that studying a small number of genes will allow them to quickly decide which pathogen is in the patient’s system and therefore be able to treat them for that very specific disease, resulting in a unique treatment that can differ per person versus a universal approach to viruses such as COVID-19.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS REPORT, PLEASE CONTACT:
Sarah Worth
If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Marjorie Bekaert Thomas at mthomas@ivanhoe.com
