AI Article Synopsis

  • The study explores how commonly detectable biomarkers can aid in early diagnosis of infections and cancers in patients.
  • Utilizing electronic medical records from 517 hospitalized patients, researchers developed a risk assessment tool using everyday biomarkers and statistical analysis methods.
  • The findings suggest that despite differences in clinical characteristics, infections and cancers can be effectively distinguished using these biomarkers, allowing for better patient management and risk stratification.

Article Abstract

Introduction: Many pathobiological processes that manifest in a patient's organs could be associated with biomarker levels that are detectable in different human systems. However, biomarkers that promote early disease diagnosis should not be tested only in personalized medicine but also in large-scale diagnostic evaluations of patients, such as for medical management.

Objective: We aimed to create an easy algorithmic risk assessment tool that is based on obtainable "everyday" biomarkers, identifying infection and cancer patients.

Patients: We obtained the study data from the electronic medical records of 517 patients (186 infection and 331 cancer episodes) hospitalized at Gorzów Hospital, Poland, over a one and a half-year period from the 1 of January 2017 to the 30 of June 2018.

Methods And Results: A set of consecutive statistical methods (cluster analysis, ANOVA, and ROC analysis) was used to predict infection and cancer. For in-hospital diagnosis, our approach showed independent clusters of patients by age, sex, MPV, and disease fractions. From the set of available "everyday" biomarkers, we established the most likely bioindicators for infection and cancer together with their classification cutoffs.

Conclusions: Despite infection and cancer being very different diseases in their clinical characteristics, it seems possible to discriminate them using "everyday" biomarkers and popular statistical methods. The estimated cutoffs for the specified biomarkers can be used to allocate patients to appropriate risk groups for stratification purposes (medical management or epidemiological administration).

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6745159PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2019/6826127DOI Listing

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