Blood test will show who is most at risk
A BLOOD test analysing immune cells in coronavirus patients when they enter hospital can show doctors who will become seriously ill, scientists believe.
A new study of the blood of 60 patients at St Thomas’ Hospital in London found that those who are badly affected by the disease have malfunctioning immune cells, and dramatically fewer cells that aid tissue repair.
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust believe that testing patients for the immune problems when they enter hospital could help doctors prioritise those most likely to decline.
Adrian Hayday, who heads the Crick’s Immuno-surveillance Laboratory and is professor of immunobiology at King’s College London, said: “The changes we’ve observed in the blood are not subtle and patients with these features seem more likely to experience severe disease, requiring intensive management.”
The team found that patients who do worse have a problem with a specific type of T cell that ordinarily eradicates virus-infected cells. They also have far fewer immune cells called basophils that can be involved in tissue repair.
It suggests that in severely ill patients, the virus is skewing the immune response and knocking out one of the body’s most critical natural defences. The finding could help researchers develop new treatments and vaccines.
If scientists could discover what is causing the immune cells to vanish and malfunction they could hunt for a drug to stop it.
The team believes that providing patients with a natural protein that promotes T cell function – recombinant Interleukin 7 – could help the problem, and have called for immediate trials.
Prof Hayday said: “There’s a lot we still don’t know about this virus, but we have seen that it doesn’t simply discriminate
‘We need to be at a point where clinical treatment decisions can be guided by state-of-the-art knowledge’
according to age and underlying condition. “Although in smaller numbers, younger, healthy individuals can also be struck down with severe symptoms.
“We need to be at a point where clinical treatment decisions can be guided by the state-of-the-art knowledge of the immune system.”
Manu Shankar-hari, consultant in intensive care medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our new study highlights the enormous potential to measure the status of very specific types of immune cell involved in fighting the virus.”