{"id":692847,"date":"2025-09-30T16:20:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/immune-cell-signatures-could-help-guide-treatment-for-critically-ill-patients\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:20:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T13:20:16","slug":"immune-cell-signatures-could-help-guide-treatment-for-critically-ill-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/immune-cell-signatures-could-help-guide-treatment-for-critically-ill-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Immune cell &#8216;signatures&#8217; could help guide treatment for critically ill patients"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a34d72191f1d\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a34d72191f1d\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/immune-cell-signatures-could-help-guide-treatment-for-critically-ill-patients\/#Scoring_the_immune_system\" >Scoring the immune system<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/immune-cell-signatures-could-help-guide-treatment-for-critically-ill-patients\/#Dysregulation_beyond_the_ICU\" >Dysregulation beyond the ICU<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-gallery lightGallery\">\n<div data-thumb=\"https:\/\/scx1.b-cdn.net\/csz\/news\/tmb\/2024\/emergency-care.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/scx2.b-cdn.net\/gfx\/news\/hires\/2024\/emergency-care.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Credit: Unsplash\/CC0 Public Domain\">\n<figure class=\"article-img\">\n            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/scx1.b-cdn.net\/csz\/news\/800a\/2024\/emergency-care.jpg\" alt=\"emergency care\" title=\"Credit: Unsplash\/CC0 Public Domain\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\"\/><figcaption class=\"text-darken text-low-up text-truncate-js text-truncate mt-3\">\n                Credit: Unsplash\/CC0 Public Domain<br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>When a patient enters the emergency department in critical condition, doctors must quickly run through a crucial list of questions: Does the patient have an infection? If so, is it bacterial or viral? Do they require treatment? Can the patient recover at home safely or do they need to be hospitalized?<\/p>\n<p>Even when an infection is diagnosed, the treatment plan isn&#8217;t always clear. Some sepsis patients, for instance, recover well with steroid treatment, while others react poorly and their condition declines. But clues in a patient&#8217;s immune system response could help physicians quickly and accurately zero in on a plan of action.<\/p>\n<p>In two recent scientific papers, Purvesh Khatri, Ph.D., professor of biomedical informatics, has laid out a road map for such a tool, detailing the development and validation of a collection of blood tests that would provide answers to all of these questions. Those tests could readily assist emergency clinicians in determining diagnosis and care protocols for patients with a suspected infection or critical condition\u2014those experiencing sepsis, burn trauma, infection or acute respiratory distress.<\/p>\n<p>Together, the tests\u2014which assess genetic activity patterns, also known as signatures, in immune cells to reveal a patient&#8217;s immune state\u2014could help physicians assess whether patients need treatment and, if so, the most beneficial type.<\/p>\n<p>Past studies conducted by Khatri and his team have shown that immune cell gene signatures can diagnose the existence of an infection as well as predict type and severity. The team used that information to translate certain gene signatures into a test useable in the clinic, which received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>It made Khatri wonder if blood-based signatures could also guide treatment decisions for severe infections and other critical conditions frequently seen in intensive care units. To answer this question, the team developed a scoring system that quantified immune cell dysregulation by identifying &#8220;good&#8221; gene signatures, which indicated a desired healthy immune response, and &#8220;bad&#8221; ones, which signified an imbalanced, detrimental immune response associated with a higher risk of severe outcomes and a need for prompt treatment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This work, combined with the fact that we have an FDA-cleared clinical test, is an indicator that we are likely at the beginning of the era of precision medicine in critical care,&#8221; said Khatri, who is a member of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection. &#8220;We finally have all the required tools to match the right people with the right treatment at the right time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Two papers describing the studies were published in <i>Nature Medicine<\/i>. Khatri; Angela Rogers, MD, associate professor of pulmonary and critical care; and Timothy Sweeney, MD, Ph.D., a former Stanford postdoc, are co-senior authors of the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41591-025-03956-5\" target=\"_blank\">paper that describes the treatment-focused study<\/a>. Andrew Moore, MD, postdoc in the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, and a clinical instructor of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine, is the first author of that study.<\/p>\n<p>Oliver Liesenfeld, MD, former chief medical officer and current advisor at Inflammatix is the lead and corresponding author of the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41591-025-03933-y\" target=\"_blank\">study that validated the use of the diagnostic tests<\/a> in a clinical setting. Sweeney, Khatri and Nathan Shapiro, MD, professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School, are co-senior authors of that study.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Scoring_the_immune_system\"><\/span>Scoring the immune system<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The existing, FDA-<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>roved diagnostic and predictive gene signature test, known as TriVerity, measures the activity of 29 genes and uses artificial intelligence to provide three scores for likelihood of a bacterial infection, a viral infection and severe illness, defined as requiring ICU-level care within seven days.<\/p>\n<p>The recently published TriVerity validation study enrolled 1,222 patients from 22 emergency departments in the United States and Europe, analyzing how well the test identified infection and predicted severity in real health care settings. Overall, the test outperformed three of the clinical standards used to flag infection, providing a more accurate diagnosis, prediction of illness severity and better guidance on whether to use antibiotics.<\/p>\n<p>In a separate study that investigated gene signatures to inform critical care treatment, the researchers analyzed more than 7,000 blood samples from 37 cohorts in 13 countries to better understand how immune cell activity might predict severity of a critical illness and response to treatment.<\/p>\n<p>The team collected data on critical care cases, treatments and outcomes from public repositories and from a newly formed consortium of 11 institutions. From this information, they proposed a new scoring system, called the Human Immune Dysregulation Evaluation Framework (HI-DEF), which provides two scores that indicate the status of a patient&#8217;s immune system health\u2014helping predict whether a patient will have a healthy or unhealthy immune response.<\/p>\n<p>The scores divide the patients into four groups: myeloid dysregulation, lymphoid dysregulation, systemwide dysregulation (in which both myeloid and lymphoid cells are off-kilter) and balanced response (in which all immune cells are functioning as expected).<\/p>\n<p>The study showed that an increase in either immune dysregulation score, represented with a higher level of &#8220;bad&#8221; gene signatures, compared with the &#8220;good&#8221; ones, was linked to poor outcomes in a range of critical illnesses, including sepsis, burn, trauma and acute respiratory distress.<\/p>\n<p>For most critical illnesses, standard treatments don&#8217;t specifically target the immune response. Instead, doctors focus their efforts on treating the symptoms of the infection\u2014for example, administering medications that address their blood pressure or placing patients with failing lungs on a breathing machine.<\/p>\n<p>However, if a patient&#8217;s immune system is out of balance, these treatments can backfire. Sepsis, for instance, can stem from viral or bacterial infections, but the symptoms are similar. Bacterial sepsis worsens by the hour and requires a swift prescription of antibiotics\u2014that&#8217;s why doctors often im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>tely administer antibiotics. But it&#8217;s not without risk, according to Khatri. If the infection turns out to be viral, the antibiotics are not only ineffective; they can create ideal conditions for antibiotic-resistant bacteria to flourish.<\/p>\n<p>Khatri found that categorizing patients into groups that signify whether and how different arms of their immune system are functioning\u2014or not functioning\u2014can help doctors make better, faster, targeted treatment decisions. For example, if a patient has myeloid dysregulation, they will likely benefit from drugs that target the myeloid immune response, while patients with lymphoid dysregulation need drugs focused on the lymphoid immune response. If both are dysregulated, doctors may choose a combination of lymphoid- and myeloid-targeting drugs.<\/p>\n<p>This information can be used to prescribe the proper treatment once, at the beginning, eliminating any guesswork.<\/p>\n<p>Further data analysis also showed that patients with high lymphoid dysregulation, whether they had sepsis or were suffering from burns, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a>ly benefited from steroid treatments; mortality rates improved when appropriately treated.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, when both myeloid and lymphoid immune responses were balanced, patients did not benefit from steroid treatment, and mortality rates worsened. Prospective clinical studies are needed to identify more specific treatments, such as steroids, Khatri said.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Dysregulation_beyond_the_ICU\"><\/span>Dysregulation beyond the ICU<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Khatri and his team plan to pair the HI-DEF scores with the TriVerity diagnostic test to create a one-stop shop that can help doctors analyze blood samples, identify immune system dysregulation and guide treatments in as little as 30 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>In the future, Khatri hopes, doctors could take a patient&#8217;s blood sample, run it through the tool and receive a gene signature analysis that tells them the patient&#8217;s diagnosis as well as whether and how they should be treated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You could have a platform to identify the infection, severity of the illness and the treatment quickly,&#8221; Khatri said.<\/p>\n<p>Khatri also hopes the dysregulation scoring system will one day move beyond critical illnesses. Signs of immune dysregulation can appear long before a patient ends up in the ICU, so the tool could be used to surveil general health concerns, he said. (Previous work conducted by Khatri found that patients with other high-risk health concerns, such as diabetes, had a higher number of &#8220;bad&#8221; gene signatures.)<\/p>\n<p>More research is needed to determine whether lifestyle changes could alter these signatures, but it&#8217;s a signal to Khatri that there&#8217;s a strong association warranting more exploration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My vision is to make an immune dysregulation assessment part of your annual health checkup,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-main__more p-4\">\n<p><strong>More information:<\/strong><br \/>\n                                                    A consensus immune dysregulation framework for sepsis and critical illnesses, <i>Nature Medicine<\/i> (2025). <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-doi=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/s41591-025-03956-5\" target=\"_blank\">DOI: 10.1038\/s41591-025-03956-5<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>Clinical validation of an AI-based blood testing device for diagnosis and prognosis of acute infection and sepsis, <i>Nature Medicine<\/i> (2025). <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" data-doi=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/s41591-025-03933-y\" target=\"_blank\">DOI: 10.1038\/s41591-025-03933-y<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"d-inline-block text-medium my-4\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tProvided by<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStanford University Medical Center<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"icon_open\" href=\"http:\/\/med.stanford.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<svg>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<use href=\"https:\/\/medx.b-cdn.net\/tmpl\/v6\/img\/svg\/sprite.svg#icon_open\" x=\"0\" y=\"0\"\/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/svg><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>                                        <!-- print only --><\/p>\n<div class=\"d-none d-print-block\">\n<p>\n                                                 <strong>Citation<\/strong>:<br \/>\n                                                 Immune cell &#8216;signatures&#8217; could help guide treatment for critically ill patients (2025, September 30)<br \/>\n                                                 retrieved 30 September 2025<br \/>\n                                                 from https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>\/2025-09-immune-cell-signatures-treatment-critically.html\n                                            <\/p>\n<p>\n                                            This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no<br \/>\n                                            part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.\n                                            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script id=\"facebook-jssdk\" async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/sciencee\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Science category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2025-09-immune-cell-signatures-treatment-critically.html\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Credit: Unsplash\/CC0 Public Domain When a patient enters the emergency department in critical condition, doctors must quickly run through a crucial list of questions: Does the patient have an infection? If so, is it bacterial or viral? Do they require treatment? Can the patient recover at home safely or do they need to be hospitalized?&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":692848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/scx2.b-cdn.net\/gfx\/news\/hires\/2024\/emergency-care.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-692847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sciencee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}