Scientists at Stanford (Calif.) University have found blood tests can shorten the time it takes to identify sepsis in patients from three days to less than one hour.
Sanford Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics Research Purvesh Khatri, PhD, and postdoctoral scholar and lead author Tim Sweeney, PhD, identified 11 genes that create a distinct pattern when a person is infected with sepsis. They found the genes after examining blood drawn from nearly 1,600 sepsis patients, as well as from those with similar conditions and healthy individuals.
"It's critical for clinicians to diagnose sepsis accurately and quickly because the risk of death from this condition increases with every passing hour it goes untreated," said Dr. Khatri.
The blood test method of identifying sepsis is not only faster than current methods, which can take several days, the research found the accuracy of using the gene-activation signature to detect sepsis surpassed current methods.
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