Covid-19: Blood Test Can Predict Patient Survival Chances

• EKOHOTBLOG , 8th December, 2020
• According to some scientists, a blood test has been developed that can predict whether Covid patients will need intensive care  or are even likely to survive , shortly after they develop symptoms.

If validated in real-life hospital settings, the test could enable doctors to direct life-saving treatment to the most needy patients sooner, boosting their chances of survival.

It could also bolster doctors’ confidence in the face of difficult decisions, such as whether to offer palliative care or an ICU bed when hospitals are close to capacity.

Earlier this year, Markus Ralser and colleagues identified 27 proteins in the blood of Covid-19 patients that were present at different levels depending on the severity of their symptoms.

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Since then, they have followed 160 Covid patients whose blood was tested when they were admitted to hospital to explore whether its protein signature could predict the progression of their illness.

“It turns out that such patients have an early inflammatory response to the infection, which we can measure in the blood and use to say, ‘OK, 40 days down the line, this is your likely outcome’,” said Ralser, a professor of biochemistry at the Francis Crick Institute in London and Charité University Medicine in Berlin.

“Every day counts with severe Covid, and those people who need intensive care need to get it as soon as possible because this greatly increases their chances of survival.”