Monitoring Sepsis through the Detection of latent Viruses

The topic of my entry this week will combine the subject matter of two previous posts: septic infections and viruses.

 It may sound strange, but some study has been done that suggests that it may be possible to monitor progression/severity of septic infections through the detection of previously latent viruses, indicating a clinically significant depressed immune system.  In order to accomplish this, several serially collected blood and/or plasma samples were obtained from hospitalized patients over a period of time and monitored for an increase in viral DNA from species that are capable of becoming latent, or hiding within the host’s DNA.  Examples of these which were used in the study included cytomegalovirus (CMV), Epstein-Barr (EBV), and herpes-simplex (HSV).¹

In theory, when the immune system is suppressed to a certain extent, these latent viruses would be reactivated and enter the patient’s blood.  For the purpose of this study, an increase in the viral DNA present in the patient’s blood was cross correlated to secondary infections such as bacteria and fungi to see if a relationship could be established, which could be used to indicate the underlying status of the corresponding person’s immune system.¹

It was determined that this method of serially monitoring the amount of virus present in a septic patient’s blood could be useful in determining the severity of the depression of the immune system.  The authors suggest that this could be best accomplished through monitoring a panel of common viruses such as CMV, EBV, HSV as well as others, and observed for a marked increase across the board which could indicate that an individual has entered the immunosuppressive stage of sepsis meaning that they would be almost incapable of fighting off infections from various opportunistic pathogens such as bacteria and fungi.¹

If you would like to read the full article and see the figures, here is the link:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0098819

Reference:

1.      Walton AH, Muenzer JT, Rasche D, Boomer JS, Sato B, et al. (2014) Reactivation of Multiple Viruses in Patients with Sepsis. PLoS ONE 9(6): e98819. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098819