Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) demonstrated how rapid testing of cytokine levels can help distinguish different diseases with similar symptom profiles. Nearly 30% of clinicians changed how they managed disease in children after receiving cytokine level information, showing the potential for this testing to impact clinical practice. The findings were recently published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors began diagnosing patients with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a condition that occurs weeks after infection and results from inflammation throughout the body. However, the initial symptoms – such as high fever and changes in blood pressure – are very similar to those of an acute, severe COVID-19 infection, so doctors needed to be able to distinguish between the two conditions, since each one requires a very different course of treatment.
Distinguishing between MIS-C and COVID-19 is just one example of the value of serum cytokine panels. Cytokines are signaling proteins that regulate inflammation and coordinate immune responses. Researchers and clinical laboratories have worked hard to make sure that cytokine panels can be analyzed more quickly to inform the course of care – with most results returned after 5 to 7 days – yet understanding the value of cytokines in real time, within 24 hours, as biomarkers for different diseases is a relatively new concept.
https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(24)00977-1/abstract
