At present, diagnosed cases of sepsis exceed 49 million a year, with someone dying every three seconds. Rapid treatment is critical to a patient’s recovery; this new innovation enables patients to be diagnosed and treated prior to showing any clinical symptoms, transforming the timeline of sepsis treatment response and patient care pathways to save lives and cost.
Sepsis is caused when a patient’s immune system overreacts to an infection. It is a potentially life-threatening condition which is responsible for 48,000 deaths each year in the UK alone, and costs up to £15.6 billion every year for the UK economy.
If treated in time, most patients have the potential to recover. However, at present, typically the diagnosis of sepsis cannot be made until the patient presents clinical symptoms, which both increases the risk to life for the patient, and the cost of treatment for the hospital. The current test used to identify the cause of infection is typically conducted using a microbial culture. This is a slow process which may take two to four days to complete, whilst the patient’s condition deteriorates and the need for medical assistance increases.
This new technique, developed by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), is not dependent upon the symptoms of sepsis being clinically displayed. Instead, a set of biomarkers (changes in the patients’ immune system which can be measured) are used in patients to diagnose the presence of sepsis multiple days before symptoms appear, with predictive accuracy of at least 97% to differentiate between the development of sepsis from non-sepsis. This technique also has 100% predictive accuracy in differentiating sepsis from Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS).
This allows sepsis to be identified in a patient much earlier, extending the treatment window and making medical intervention more effective – saving patient lives and reducing hospital costs.
This technique is usable across the medical field to diagnose patients with suspected sepsis – improving patient care, reducing the risk to life, and lowering costs for medical institutions. By minimising the risk of serious illness, this development can also reduce the risk of significant distress or trauma to the patient, potentially reducing further medical assistance or treatment needed over time.
This technique can be used by medical professionals in the field to ensure military personnel who are going to develop sepsis are identified in advance to receive treatment efficiently with a high level of accuracy, returning them to the front line more quickly.
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