Key result
Peripheral blood gene expression analysis offers a robust alternative to traditional pathogen detection for diagnosing infections.
Why the study?
Emerging pandemic infectious threats, inappropriate antibacterial use, and diagnostic delays create a need for improved infectious disease diagnostics beyond traditional pathogen detection.
Host-based peripheral blood gene expression analysis represents a novel diagnostic approach for infectious diseases that may provide diagnostic and prognostic information to guide treatment.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Host-response gene expression profiling may enable rapid, pathogen-agnostic diagnosis; leaves open clinical utility pending prospective validation.
Emerging pandemic infectious threats, inappropriate antibacterial use contributing to multidrug resistance, and increased morbidity and mortality from diagnostic delays all contribute to a need for improved diagnostics in the field of infectious diseases. Historically, diagnosis of infectious diseases has relied on pathogen detection; however, a novel concept to improve diagnostics in infectious diseases relies instead on the detection of changes in patterns of gene expression in circulating white blood cells in response to infection. Alterations in peripheral blood gene expression in the infected state are robust and reproducible, yielding diagnostic and prognostic information to help facilitate patient treatment decisions.
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Holcomb et al. (2016) conducted a review in Infectious diseases. Peripheral blood gene expression analysis vs. Pathogen detection was evaluated. Peripheral blood gene expression analysis provides a robust and reproducible alternative to traditional pathogen detection for diagnosing infectious diseases and guiding treatment decisions.
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