A sepsis is a generalized infection of the body caused by the development of germs (such as, for example, Staphylococcus aureus) which will multiply and gradually spread throughout the body. Of course, we die much less today thanks to the development of antibiotics, but sepsis nevertheless remains an emergency (sometimes fatal) when the patient has weakened immune defenses. Failure to give the right treatment quickly enough, the immune system reacts badly, the blood pressure drops. And sepsis then progresses to septic shock (the most serious form of inflammatory response).
This is why the new test, which has just been developed by a team of researchers from King’s College London, should be greeted with a smile by hospital practitioners. This blood test makes it possible to detect sepsis infections in less than two hours, and seems effective in 86% of cases.
Until now, you had to wait 48 hours for the lab results to find out whether or not a patient had sepsis. Two days of delay before determining the correct treatment with antibiotics. But researchers at King’s College have identified a new biomarker that can make the diagnosis in two hours flat.
For now, this test is in its first phase of testing in some hospitals in Sweden and London, in patients for whom there is suspicion of sepsis. “If we can prove its effectiveness, then its use could be extended to other hospitals within two years,” said Prof. Graham Lord, of the King’s College Biomedical Research Center.
