How to Synchronize Longitudinal Patient Data With the Underlying Disease Progression: A Pilot Study Using the Biomarker CRP for Timing COVID-19

The continued digitalization of medicine has led to an increased availability of longitudinal patient data that allows the investigation of novel and known diseases in unprecedented detail. However, to accurately describe any underlying pathophysiology and allow inter-patient comparisons, individual...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in medicine 2021-07, Vol.8, p.607594
Main Authors: Maibach, Martina A, Allam, Ahmed, Hilty, Matthias P, Perez Gonzalez, Nicolas A, Buehler, Philipp K, Wendel Garcia, Pedro D, Brugger, Silvio D, Ganter, Christoph C, Krauthammer, Michael, Schuepbach, Reto A, Bartussek, Jan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
biomarker
COVID-19
longitudinal data
Medicine
risk stratification
subgroup comparison
synchronization
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The continued digitalization of medicine has led to an increased availability of longitudinal patient data that allows the investigation of novel and known diseases in unprecedented detail. However, to accurately describe any underlying pathophysiology and allow inter-patient comparisons, individual patient trajectories have to be synchronized based on temporal markers. In this pilot study, we use longitudinal data from critically ill ICU COVID-19 patients to compare the commonly used alignment markers "onset of symptoms," "hospital admission," and "ICU admission" with a novel objective method based on the peak value of the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP). By applying our CRP-based method to align the progression of neutrophils and lymphocytes, we were able to define a pathophysiological window that improved mortality risk stratification in our COVID-19 patient cohort. Our data highlights that proper synchronization of longitudinal patient data is crucial for accurate interpatient comparisons and the definition of relevant subgroups. The use of objective temporal disease markers will facilitate both translational research efforts and multicenter trials.
ISSN:2296-858X
2296-858X
DOI:10.3389/fmed.2021.607594