Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 3. Serum severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-coronavirus (CoV) RNA
levels in SARS patients on the day of hospital admission. Box plot of SARS-CoV
RNA levels (common logarithmic scale) in sera of SARS patients requiring and not
requiring intensive care unit admission. A real-time quantitative reverse-transcription
polymerase chain reaction assay towards the nucleocapsid region of the SARS-CoV
genome was used for quantification. The horizontal lines denote the medians. The
lines inside the boxes denote the medians. The boxes mark the interval between the
25th and 75th percentiles. The whiskers denote the interval between the 10th and 90th
percentiles. The filled circles mark the data points outside the 10th and 90th
percentiles.
all, viremia appears to be a consistent feature in both pediatric and adult SARS
patients.
The relatively high detection rate of SARS-CoV in plasma and serum dur-
ing the first week of illness suggests that plasma/serum-based RT-PCR should
be incorporated into the routine diagnostic workup of suspected or confirmed
SARS patients both in adult and pediatric populations. This approach opens up
numerous interesting research opportunities. For example, this assay can be
used to monitor the effect or lack of effects of anti-viral agents. Also, it would
be valuable to explore the potentially damaging effect of giving steroids at a
time when the viral load is still relatively high. We are aware that many of
these questions might not be answerable with retrospectively collected samples.
Nonetheless, the development of animal models
(
5
,
6
)
might allow the testing
of some of these hypotheses in a controlled manner.
