The Covid -9 pandemic attributed significant progress to respiratory virus testing, but also showed significant unfulfilled needs to the exam to avoid spreading high-risk infections.
While the PCR tests (polymerase chain reaction) is the gold standard for the detection of viral infections, they remain a challenge to control large number of people in areas vulnerable to an epidemic – such as healthcare centers and hospitals – due to high costs and high costs.
A new Yale study, however, finds that an alternative strategy – using a nasal blow to detect an antiviral protein produced by the body as a defense against infection – can be an effective method for eliminating respiratory infections, limiting the PCR test only to those who are likely to be infected.
The study was published online on June 20 Lancet Ebiomedicine.
Comparing the results of both PCR tests and projections on immunological biomarker to more than 1,000 people (including children and adults, some who had a viral infection and some who did not do so), the researchers found that the use of the test would be less expensive.
This new approach, according to the findings, can offer a valuable strategy for restaurant management and the usual projections for the prevention of virus transmission in high -risk arrangements, said Ellen F. Foxman, Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine.
“If you wanted to view every person who walked the door for each respiratory virus, it would be difficult and prohibitively expensive,” Foxman said. “But we also know that in some settings with near quarters – such as military environments, healthcare and rehabilitation facilities or assisted living centers – an infected person who may be asymptomatic can spread the infection to others, including high -risk people.
“So the question was. How can you try the tests in these settings?” Most people are not going to have viruses, so you don’t want to do sophisticated, expensive tests for them.
The first authors of the study were Julien Amat, a postdoctoral collaborator at Foxman’s workshop, and Sarah Dudgeon, Ph.D. Student in the research team of Wade Schulz, Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine in Yale. The study also included a group of other partners in the Yale Laboratory Medicine Department.
For the study, the researchers struck a observation from Foxman’s workshop in 2017: the nasal coatings received from patients with suspicious respiratory infections revealed that the positive tests for PCR tests had been activated. This, concluded, could be useful to indicate the presence of a virus.
In the current study, they focused on the CXCL10 protein (cytokin produced in the nasal passage in a multi-respiratory response) using 1,088 SWAB samples collected from COVID-19 sorting tests or clinical arrangements at Yale New Haveen Hospital. They then carried out a series of analyzes – including a comparison with the results of the tests from the PCR tests carried out using the same coatings and mathematical modeling to predict resource saving from the use of the test in different scenarios.
The biomarker had a good prediction of viral infections regardless of age, gender or other patients of the patient, Foxman said.
In addition, the research team used electronic files to evaluate those cases when the results of biomarkers and PCR tests were not aligned (when, for example, the test of biomarkers was negative and the PCR test was positive) and the discovered factors that could contribute to.
For example, the biomarker screen was less likely to detect a viral infection in people taking certain immunosuppressive drugs for cancer. Similarly, they found that among those who had tried positively for viral infections with PCR tests, but for whom viral loads were so low that they were slightly detectable, biological index control was less likely to produce a positive test.
Overall, the researchers found that the method of biomarkers, if used to promote populations with low prevalence of the virus (for example, hospital employees who do not expose symptoms of infection), control would reduce the need for 92% of PCR tests.
So you could do less than one tenth of PCR tests and still identify people with viral infections. This strategy could have been useful during the early Covid-19 pandemic, when our hospital sometimes tested 10,000 or more people a week. “Researchers estimate that the cost of PCR trade tests is about five to 15 times higher than the cost of biomarkers.
Ellen F. Foxman, Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Immunogeology at Yale Medicine School
The study was funded by the inaugural competition of the Yale-New Haven Health System (YNHHS) innovation award, an initiative that supports YNHS employees and the Yale School working on promising ideas with opportunities for the healthcare impact and health care.
Other authors of the study are Julien Ar Amat, a postdoctoral partner at YSM and a member of the Foxman Laboratory. Sarah N. Dudgeon, Ph.D. Candidate for Schulz Research Team. Nagarjuna R. Chemarla, former postdoctoral partner on YSM. Timothy A. Watkins, a postgraduate student and member of the Foxman Laboratory. Alex B. Green, a former resident of Yale New Haven Hospital, who is now a colleague at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital. H. Patrick Young, Associate Researcher in the Department of Laboratory Medicine. David R. Peaper, Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine in YSM. Marie L. Landry, Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Medicine (infectious diseases) in YSM. And Wade Schulz, Associate Professor of Laboratory Medicine in YSM.
Source:
Magazine report:
Amat, jar, et al. (2025). Tests of nasal biological markers to exclude samples of viral respiratory infection and classification: test performance study. ebiomedicine. doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.105820.
