New Blood Test For Viral Infections Set to Reduce Rampant Antibiotic Use

October 14, 2013- The results of a new blood test suggest the possibility of a new tool to help doctors determine early on whether a respiratory infection is viral or bacterial. And because antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, researchers are hopeful that the test will reduce unnecessary prescription of antibiotics.

In a recent article titled "New Test Offers Better Diagnosis of Respiratory Viral Infections," the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) reported on a new study published in the September 18 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

The story quotes Geoffrey Ginsburg, study co-author and professor at Duke University School of Medicine, "Current tests require knowledge of the pathogen to confirm infection, because they are strain-specific, but our test could be used right away when a new, unknown pathogen emerges."

"The new test could prove especially useful in identifying potential viral outbreaks before they have a chance to become widespread," Ginsburg says, adding, "In instances such as pandemic flu or the corona-virus that has erupted in the Middle East, it's extremely important to diagnose a viral illness far more accurately and speedier than can be done using traditional diagnostics."

The test evaluates the strength by which certain genes are turned on, or expressed, by immune cells in the blood when in the presence of bacterial or viral pathogens. Scientists know from earlier work that certain genes are only expressed in patients with respiratory viral infections, never in healthy people or in patients with bacterial respiratory infections.

In their article, AAAS reported, "The researchers used the test on 102 individuals arriving at a hospital's emergency department with fever; 28 had a viral infection, 39 had a bacterial infection and 35 were healthy controls." The conclusion was that "The test provided true positive identifications of viral infection in 89 percent of the cases, and correctly ruled out the negative cases 94 percent of the time."

"One of the big global threats at the moment is the emergence of bacterial resistance, and that is largely driven by overuse of antibiotics," said Christopher W. Woods, a co-author of the paper, also quoted in the article, "This is a growing public health threat, creating infections that are increasingly difficult to manage. A tool that enables us to accurately identify viral infections could curb the indiscriminate use of antibiotics and reduce the development of resistant pathogens."

The researchers are now working to shorten the test results timeframe (currently about 12 hours to analyze some 30 genes).

Read the full AAAS post here. The abstract, titled A Host-Based RT-PCR Gene Expression Signature to Identify Acute Respiratory Viral Infection, is available here

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