The new test allows to recognize traumatic brain injury within 10 minutes on the basis of a single drop of blood - informs the magazine "PLOS ONE".
A fall from the stairs, a traffic accident, a collision with a tree on the ski trail ... Similar injuries are often accompanied by symptoms such as blurred vision, vomiting, loss of consciousness or memory for about 30 minutes. Every year, only in Europe, three million people are admitted to hospitals with suspected traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Currently, the only reliable diagnostic method is computed tomography, available only in some hospitals. This method is expensive and exposes patients to X-rays, and 90%. subjected to the study and so goes home, because the tomography of nothing disturbing does not show.
Researchers from the Université de Geneve (UNIGE), in cooperation with the hospitals in Barcelona, Madrid and Seville, have developed a TBIcheck test that, analyzing the levels of brain-specific proteins in a single drop of blood, diagnoses the possibility of minor traumatic brain injury. It's about proteins that are released from damaged brain cells, especially H-FABP. H-FABP levels above 2.5 nanogram per ml of blood indicate brain damage.
The test is somewhat reminiscent of a pregnancy test - if a dash appears in the right test site, the patient should go to the hospital for a CT scan. If the results do not seem unambiguous, you can use a small (5 cm in diameter) Cube Reader, which displays the word "positive" or "negative" and transmits the result via bluetooth to the doctor's phone. Patients with negative results can return home, without wasting time, without charging hospital costs and not taking other places in the queue for tomography.
Further research by the same team is aimed at developing tests that can also detect stroke or brain aneurysm. (PAP)
