A raised plasma viscometry looks to be an excellent way to monitor Covid-19.” Continuous patient monitoring The immune system is automatically hardwired to respond to conditions within the body, and these conditions are triggered by different stimuli, including infection, tissue injury, trauma and surgery.
Once the level of fibrinogens increases, it’s hard to turn back.īenson says: “The plasma viscosity is raised due to the acute phase response, part of the body’s early defence and part of the innate immune system. Because of this, blood thinning medications did little for the patients, as they work to slow the mechanisms by which coagulation occurs rather than reduce the viscosity of the blood itself. The Emory patients all had extremely high levels of fibrinogen, a big sticky protein, which increases with inflammation and is one of the key building blocks of a blood clot. Its contents are water, salt, enzymes, antibodies and other proteins, notably fibrinogen,” says Benson Viscometers founder and managing director Bernie Benson.
It is the single largest component of human blood and makes up about 55% of its volume. “Plasma is a clear, pale yellow liquid portion of the blood, that remains after the red cells, white cells and other cellular components are removed. Health Services Laboratories in London is also on the case, using blood viscosity tests to monitor inflammatory status in certain groups of Covid-19 patients, exploring the possibility that high inflammatory markers might indicate the need for alternative strategies for stroke prevention in these patients. Clinicians have been carrying out viscometry tests on all Covid-19 patients to establish a link between blood viscosity and the viral disease, and explore how it may relate to disease severity and recovery. They work by drawing a small sample of plasma through a narrow capillary using a constant pressure and measuring the time taken for the sample to move a known distance.Īt Addenbrookes Hospital in the UK, the company’s equipment is now being used to explore how best to understand and treat Covid-19.
Benson Viscometers, based in Haverfordwest, Wales is the market leader in the UK and Ireland for clinical viscometers, instruments which can be used to measure the viscosity, or thickness, of blood.
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