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Title Simple blood test could detect life-threatening aortic tears Media name/outlet deadlinews Country/Territory United Kingdom Date 7/06/21 Description A SIMPLE blood test developed by researchers from a Scottish university could help doctors spot deadly damage to the body’s largest blood vessel.
The University of Dundee has developed a blood test that can detect acute aortic syndrome.
Acute aortic syndrome (AAS) occurs when the wall of the aorta tears and blood begins to flow between the layers of the blood vessel wall.
Dr Anna-Maria Choy - Research News Scotland
Photo by the University of Dundee. Dr Anna-Maria Choy (above) is the Clinical Senior Lecturer at the universities School of Medicine.
Patients with AAS need immediate treatment, in the most severe cases emergency surgery, to prevent the artery from rupturing and the patient potentially dying.
However, diagnosing the disease in time is often difficult as symptoms, such as chest pain, can be attributed to other, commoner conditions.
Now, researchers at the Universities of Dundee and Edinburgh have found that testing for a molecule called desmosine may speed up the diagnosis of this deadly disease, which affects 3000 people in the UK every year.
heart - Research News Scotland (1)
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash. Researchers compared blood concentrations of desmosine in patients known to have AAS and people without the disease.
The researchers found that those suffering from AAS had almost double the concentration of desmosine in their blood. Desmosine levels were also associated with aortic growth.
The team believes that desmosine is released into the blood when the tissues within the aorta wall break down, signalling that the aorta has been damaged and is at risk of expanding or bursting.
They now hope to use these findings to explore whether a simple blood test at Dundee could speed up the diagnosis of AAS in hospital.Producer/Author Maja Grantham URL https://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2021/06/07/simple-blood-test-could-detect-life-threatening-aortic-tears-research-news-scotland/ Persons Anna-Maria Choy