{"id":2621,"date":"2020-07-01T16:24:52","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T20:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/?p=2621"},"modified":"2026-05-01T12:58:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:58:17","slug":"blood-test-at-covid-19-diagnosis-can-predict-disease-severity-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/blood-test-at-covid-19-diagnosis-can-predict-disease-severity-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood Test At COVID-19 Diagnosis Can Predict Disease Severity, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"processed\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2624\" src=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/07\/blood_tests_covid_ss_header.jpg\" alt=\"COVID-19 Blood Test\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/07\/blood_tests_covid_ss_header.jpg 250w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/07\/blood_tests_covid_ss_header-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/07\/blood_tests_covid_ss_header-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/07\/blood_tests_covid_ss_header-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/390\/2020\/07\/blood_tests_covid_ss_header-70x70.jpg 70w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>UVA researchers, Mary Young, Mayuresh Abhyankar, Bill Petri and Allie Donlan, found that doctors can examine COVID-19 patients\u2019 blood to identify those at greatest risk of severe illness and most likely to need a ventilator.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery could lead to new treatments to prevent deadly \u201ccytokine storms\u201d seen in severe cases of COVID-19. It also may help explain why diabetes contributes to worse outcomes in patients with the coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>The UVA scientists found that the levels of a particular cytokine in the blood upon diagnosis could be used to predict later outcomes. Cytokines \u2013 proteins produced by immune cells \u2013 are responsible for severe overreactions by the immune system, known as cytokine storms, associated with COVID-19 and other serious illnesses.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers say the discovery could become part of a scoring system to let doctors flag at-risk COVID-19 patients for closer monitoring and personalized interventions. The finding also identifies cytokines doctors could target as a new treatment approach.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201c<\/em>The immune response that we discovered to predict severe shortness of breath in COVID-19 is known in other pulmonary diseases to cause damage. So this could lead to a novel way to prevent respiratory failure in individuals infected with the new coronavirus, by inhibiting this immune cytokine,\u201d<i>\u00a0<\/i>said Dr.\u00a0Bill Petri of UVA\u2019s Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health. \u201cWe plan to test this in a model of COVID-19 prior to considering a clinical trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read the full story by Josh Barney at <a href=\"https:\/\/news.virginia.edu\/content\/blood-test-covid-19-diagnosis-can-predict-disease-severity-study-finds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UVA Today, 6\/29\/20.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UVA researchers, Mary Young, Mayuresh Abhyankar, Bill Petri and Allie Donlan, found that doctors can examine COVID-19 patients\u2019 blood to identify those at greatest risk of severe illness and most likely to need a ventilator. The discovery could lead to new treatments to prevent deadly \u201ccytokine storms\u201d seen in severe cases of COVID-19. It also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-2621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-highlights","tag-delete"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Blood Test At COVID-19 Diagnosis Can Predict Disease Severity, Study Finds - Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/bims\/blood-test-at-covid-19-diagnosis-can-predict-disease-severity-study-finds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blood Test At COVID-19 Diagnosis Can Predict Disease Severity, Study Finds - Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"UVA researchers, Mary Young, Mayuresh Abhyankar, Bill Petri and Allie Donlan, found that doctors can examine COVID-19 patients\u2019 blood to identify those at greatest risk of severe illness and most likely to need a ventilator. 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