Time for tests to catch up with illnesses

Knowing what ails patients – cold or sinus infection – would have multiple benefits

Igot my first cold in years recently, and wow – it really knocked me for a loop. First I lost my voice, but initially, I still felt great. Then it just got progressively worse over the following days until eventually, I felt like my head might explode.

I didn’t have COVID or the flu, thankfully.

But it’s been years since I had a cold, and I had somehow forgotten just how brutal a simple common cold can be.

Eventually, the cold morphed into a sinus infection, which was no picnic either.

The whole experience was a tough one. I found myself wondering what I had, and how to best treat it, and the answers weren’t easy to find. A local nurse practitioner told me that I had either a cold or a sinus infection. If it was a cold, an antibiotic would be worthless. However, a sinus infection could possibly be treated with an antibiotic – but basically, there was no way to know what was going on.

And, readers, I found that to be both fascinating and frustrating.

It’s 2023. We have easy-to-use tests to diagnose for the flu and COVID. Why don’t we have a test yet that can determine whether or not you have a coldlike illness caused by a virus or a bacteria?

Knowing that information would help physicians better determine the right path of care for people.

And that in turn would help avoid prescribing unnecessary antibiotics or other medications, instead dialing in on exactly what the patient needs for treatment.

Patient A – you have a headache, a brutal cough, and post-nasal drip. We can see from the diagnostic that your illness is a common cold, and your symptoms will best respond to Sudafed and Advil.

Or Patient B – your test shows your symptoms are caused by a bacteria, which is best treated with the antibiotics and Sudafed.

It seems like a win-win.

We know that some treatments really just treat the symptoms, and oftentimes, the best recipe is simply rest, fluids and soup. But sometimes, that care needs to be escalated – and wouldn’t it make sense to have a test available to help shape that care?

Maybe I’m oversimplifying it. But I’ve read countless reports on the high costs of medical care, the challenges of over-prescribed antibiotics, and the impact colds can have on people, so it’s a little surprising these tests don’t yet exist.

So here’s my suggestion for all these biomedical companies out there – the Pfizers and Modernas of the world. Figure out a test –one test – to definitively declare if a patient has a cold virus, RSV, flu or COVID, or if it’s some bacteria. And then we can start treating patients based on hard evidence, and not circumstantial sniffles.

DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS OR NOT?

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