Scientists have found a biomarker that can predict when a sepsis patient will die. It can also tell if the treatment of a person with sepsis is working.
Sepsis is one of the diseases that is hard to diagnose. However, after a team of scientist have discovered the molecule that turned out to be a biomarker for sepsis patients, it will definitely save their lives, according to a team of researchers at Duke University. The study, which was published in the journal "Science Advances", stated that this will be the start of many more discoveries about sepsis. Moreover, after this discovery, doctors, and clinicians are now able to control MTA levels to shun severe sepsis, said the researchers.
"This area has been a graveyard for the pharmaceutical industry, with more than 100 failed clinical trials of therapies that target the body's abnormal response to infection," study researcher Dennis C. Ko, MD, Ph.D. said in a news release. There were hundreds of clinical failures, but they are not failures of treatment but instead failures of diagnosis, Ko explained. The biomarkers will be able to let the doctors and researchers group the sepsis patients into categories, Healio stated. After that, they will be able to give the patients the right amount of medical care and correct drugs.
Sepsis patients are usually treated with some drugs and care, Science Daily has reported. The treatment does not really address the main problem, which is the runaway immune response, so it becomes more severe. Sepsis, during its beginning, it spews extraordinary amounts of inflammatory proteins known as cytokines. These cytokines need activation through another class of proteins called caspases.
Now, the caspases are the one triggering the pyroptosis, which is an explosive form of cell death. It helps destroy pathogens but can exacerbate damage to the host if left unchecked. With the new discovery, it will help these events stop.
