New findings reveal how recovery progresses following inflammation triggered by injury or illness (White blood cell and platelet tests provide early prognosis)

Medical Xpress / Harvard Medical School / Nature Communications ^ | August 22, 2022 | Thoralf Sundt et al

[ConservativeMind]

When successful, inflammation helps the body survive and heal after trauma. However, when recovery following an inflammatory response goes awry, it signals that damage is still occurring.

Scientists identified universal features of inflammatory responses of patients who successfully recovered after surgery or acute illnesses. These features, they discovered, include precise paths that white blood cell and platelet counts follow as they return to normal.

The findings could help clinicians more quickly recognize when an individual patient's recovery isn't going well, allowing them to intervene earlier.

After analyzing dozens of measurements simultaneously, they found common features in the trajectories of patients for successful inflammatory recovery: white blood cell count, which, not surprisingly, becomes elevated during inflammation, and platelet count, which decreases as platelets are used up for clotting and healing.

These trajectories, the researchers said, can be used to monitor recovery in a personalized way.

The researchers found that patients who recovered well followed the same characteristic trajectories for white blood cell count and platelet count returning to the normal range—and did so no matter their condition or age. These patterns were also consistent regardless of how quickly patients recovered, or at what levels their white blood cell and platelet counts started.

Moreover, the scientists could mathematically define the precise trajectories that indicated a successful recovery: White blood cell count underwent exponential decay, whereas platelet count increased linearly after a short delay.

"What is exciting about this study is that it suggests there are common features of the recovery path for a surprisingly wide range of diseases, and if we know what a good recovery looks like, then we should be able to identify a bad one," Higgins said.

[ConservativeMind]

The key for a positive prognosis from multiple blood tests is:

White blood cell count -> Exponential decay

Platelet count -> Linear increase, after a short delay.

[ConservativeMind]

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