what differentiates a good inflammatory recovery from a bad one? A new study, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, published in Nature Communications, yields critical clues. The scientists identified universal features of the inflammatory responses of patients who successfully recovered after surgery or acute illnesses such as COVID-19, heart...
what differentiates a good inflammatory recovery from a bad one? A new study, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, published in Nature Communications, yields critical clues. The scientists identified universal features of the inflammatory responses of patients who successfully recovered after surgery or acute illnesses such as COVID-19, heart attack, and sepsis. These features, they discovered, include precise paths that white blood cell and platelet counts follow as they return to normal.
Because inflammation occurs in patients who are already sick, it can be a complicated process to study. Thus, the researchers knew that to isolate common features, they would need to study inflammatory recovery in a highly controlled setting. "We needed to find a situation where everybody starts off in the same generally stable state of health, and then they all get a similar inflammatory stimulus at a specific time," explained first author Brody Foy, a research fellow in systems biology at HMS and Mass General.
To identify patterns of inflammatory recovery, the researchers examined medical record data from 4,693 patients at Mass General who underwent cardiovascular surgery. After analyzing dozens of measurements simultaneously, they found common features in the trajectories of patients who recovered well. They homed in on two variables that reliably identified trajectories 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.
Among the patients who recovered well after surgery, white blood cell count decreased at a precise rate, while platelet count increased at a different, but also precise, rate. These trajectories, the researchers said, can be used to monitor recovery in a personalized way.
Ref:
Brody Foy et al,Human Acute Inflammatory Recovery is Defined by Co‐Regulatory Dynamics of White Blood Cell and Platelet Populations,Nature Communications,DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32222-2
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