SEPSIS: Machine learning enables an ‘almost perfect’ diagnosis of an elusive global killer.

The disease can cause decreased blood flow to vital organs, inflammation throughout the body, and abnormal blood clotting. Therefore, if sepsis isn’t recognized and treated quickly, it can lead to shock, organ failure, and death. But it can be difficult to identify which pathogen is causing sepsis, or whether an infection is in the bloodstream or elsewhere in the body. And in many patients with symptoms that resemble sepsis, it can be challenging to determine whether they truly have an infection at all.

Now, researchers at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (CZ Biohub), the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), and UC San Francisco (UCSF) have developed a new diagnostic method that applies machine learning to advanced genomics data from both microbe and host—to identify and predict sepsis cases. As reported on October 20, 2022 in Nature Microbiology, the approach is surprisingly accurate, and has the potential to far exceed current diagnostic capabilities.

Well, good. Flashback: Sepsis causes more deaths worldwide than previously thought.

Related: Vitamin C infusion may reduce sepsis death risk. It sounds like this is just vitamin C, not the vitamin and steroids cocktail that has been so successful elsewhere.

Plus, a newer study: “Intravenous vitamin C of ≥ 5 days was significantly associated with decreased hospital and 90-day mortality in sepsis patients. Vitamin C combined with corticosteroids and/or thiamine in specific sepsis subgroups warrants further study.”