Early detection of severe corona: Research team receives award for groundbreaking discovery
Created: 05/12/2022, 10:52 am
By: Juliane Gutmann
New study results should help medical staff to recognize severe corona courses in the first stage of the disease.
© Stefan Sauer/dpa
In most cases, a coronavirus infection is harmless.
However, in some cases, patients have to be treated in the hospital.
There are warning signs for the latter courses.
Certain factors, such as old age or previous illnesses such as cancer, increase the risk of developing serious illnesses from the corona virus.
But there are also atypical patients: young or extremely fit people who also suffer from a severe course.
In these cases, it is often not just those around you who react with astonishment.
Many doctors also ask themselves
which triggers caused the severe course
of these patients .
This question is of great importance in corona research.
It is the subject of much research work.
The immunologist Dr.
Stefanie Kreutmair and her team from the Institute for Experimental Immunology at the University of Zurich have worked intensively on risk factors for severe corona courses.
As part of their studies, the Swiss researchers discovered specific markers in the immune system of people with severe corona courses.
As the German Society for Internal Medicine (DGIM) reports, these findings were so groundbreaking that the research team was awarded the
Theodor Frerichs Prize 2022
.
Survey on the course of the Corona virus
Lack of killer T cells in the blood increases the risk of severe corona courses
As Kreutmair and colleagues found out, the body's defenses in people with severe disease courses react differently than the immune system of people with mild Covid courses.
As can be seen from a DGIM press release, the Swiss researchers were able to use a novel analysis method to find out what is special about the immune response in the case of a severe course of the corona virus.
According to the scientists, the cause is the lack of a certain group of killer T cells in the blood
.
This was shown in an examination of Covid 19 patients when they were admitted to the clinic.
The study authors assume that the deficiency could be an important early warning sign for a severe course of the SARS-CoV-2 infection.
"The results could have a direct impact on the treatment of patients with Covid-19 in hospital," explains DGIM Secretary General Professor Dr.
medical
Georg Ertl: “
The blood test could help to identify the risk of a severe course at an early stage
.
These patients could then be monitored more closely and treated specifically against SARS-CoV-2 at an early stage," Ertl is quoted as saying in a DGIM press release.
As part of their study, which was published on the specialist portal Cell, Stefanie Kreutmair and her team examined the cells
of 121 Covid-19 patients
involved in the immune system in more detail.
The results were compared with the data of 21 healthy people and with those of 25 patients suffering from severe pneumonia that was not caused by Sars-CoV-2, the German Society for Internal Medicine informs.
(jg)
