TAMPA, Fla — Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, doctors have been trying to predict who will end up in the ICU.
"The major problem we've been having during this pandemic is, how do we distinguish those patients who will go through a minimally symptomatic course, so to speak, versus those that are going to end up getting very sick from the disease and may need to come to the hospital," said Dr. Jose Herazo-Maya, the Associate Chief of Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine at USF Health. "They may actually need an intensive care unit level of care."
But a new test being developed in USF's labs right now will help. Herazo-Maya leads the group of doctors doing the research. After a few studies, they realized the answer flows in the blood.
"We have discovered a group of genes in the blood that can predict whether you could be very sick from COVID-19. Those genes are 50 genes, and when they are expressed in a different way, so to speak, then we can predict whether that patient is going to need ICU level of care, mechanical ventilation and even mortality," Herazo-Maya said.
After months of collecting samples from COVID-19, they validated the same results in 425 patients from six different groups in two continents. Preliminary findings show the test is 75-percent accurate at predicting whether you're going to have a bad outcome or not once you test positive.
"Initially during this pandemic, we didn't have enough, level of care beds for these patients. But if you have such tests, you can determine who can go home, who needs to stay, who needs to go to the ICU, who needs mechanical ventilation. So that's how, not only from the treatment perspective but also from the epidemiological perspective, that test can help," Herazo-Maya said.
Herazo-Maya says the test could be used worldwide once it's approved for use. They're looking to get that done in three to five months.
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