Blood test that could stop the spread of sepsis
SEPSIS can now be diagnosed quickly from just a single drop of blood.
A portable device has been invented that can assess whether the life-threatening condition has taken hold.
Sepsis, known as the ‘silent killer’, is the leading cause of avoidable death in the UK.
It affects around 260,000 and kills 44,000 a year. Globally it kills six million sufferers a year.
It develops when an infection such as blood poisoning sparks a violent immune response in which the body attacks its own organs.
The condition is notoriously difficult to diagnose until it has spread throughout the body.
However if it is caught early enough, antibiotics can control the infection before the body’s immune response goes into overdrive. But if doctors do not diagnose it early enough, there is little they can do to control its spread.
Awareness of the condition is poor and it is often mistaken for milder conditions.
The Mail launched the ‘End The Sepsis Scandal’ campaign with the UK Sepsis Trust last year to raise awareness of symptoms among patients and health staff.
Older children and adults can suffer fever, a fast pulse, fast breathing and confusion. Researchers from the Univer- sity of Illinois and Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois, invented the portable device and published their findings in the journal Nature Communications. The device measures the immune response instead of trying to identify the source of the infection, which is how doctors usually approach sepsis diagnosis.
It counts white blood cells, particularly neutrophils, which have a protein marker called CD64 on their surface. Levels of CD64 surge as the patient’s immune response increases.
The researchers tested the device with blood samples from Carle Foundation Hospital patients in the intensive care unit and emergency room. They measured CD64 levels of patients against their vital signs, which usually help to diagnose sepsis.
Vital signs include blood pressure, rate of breathing, pulse and body temperature.
Researchers found that the results from the rapid test correlated strongly with sepsis indicators in patients’ vital signs and other traditional diagnostic tests.
Sepsis is triggered by an infection. The immune system releases chemicals that fight the infection but also cause widespread inflammation that can rapidly lead to organ failure and death.
Sepsis strikes roughly 20 per cent of patients admitted to hospital ICUs, yet it is difficult to predict the inflammatory response in time to prevent organ failure, said Dr Karen White, a physician at Carle Foundation Hospital who led the clinical aspects of the study.
‘Sepsis is one of the most serious, life - threatening problems in the ICU,’ Dr White said.
‘It can become deadly quickly, so a bedside test that can monitor patients’ inflammatory status in real time would help us treat it sooner with better accuracy.’