A paper published on April 4th 2021 in International Journal of Laboratory Hematology has shown the strongest evidence yet of the diagnostic potential of using plasma viscosity testing for patients with suspected COVID‐19.
The research, conducted by Dan Gleghorn et al. at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge demonstrated a sensitive and original use of plasma viscosity (PV) in the risk stratification of patients with COVID‐19 infection. This research could change the way we manage the pandemic and help to quickly categorize patients with suspected symptoms of COVID‐19 into high or low disease complication risk groups.
The research found that 171 COVID-19 positive patients admitted to the hospital in April and May 2020 had a mean PV of 2.00mPas. This was compared to a mean PV of 1.62mPas in 224 patients who were tested for COVID-19 and found to be negative. This is a significant increase between those testing positive and negative. In fact, the research found that a plasma viscosity result above 1.83mPas is shown to have good correlation with disease progression.
This research could ease the burden on health services all over the world. The measurement of plasma viscosity is a cheap and reliable test already available in many haematology laboratories.
You can see the full research paper here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijlh.13532
