Danish researchers have developed an app that can assist doctors in making decisions for patients with leukaemia. The app was developed by researchers at the University of Copenhagen and clinicians at Rigshospitalet. The details of this study were recently published in the journal Communications Medicine.
Almost 25% of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) patients will develop a serious infection or may need early treatment. Therefore, it is important for the doctors to identify the risk of developing infections in such patients post CLL diagnosis. The Danish researchers have addressed this concern by developing an app.
The team analysed data from 1.3 million Danes with the dataset containing 112 million blood sets and 1,123 CLL patients. They have studied the change in lymphocyte count over time and found that patients experiencing a rapid increase in WBC count appear to harbour more mutations and therefore suffer from aggressive forms of the disease. Conversely, it was also observed that patients whose WBC counts were modestly increased had fewer mutations. Taken together, these observations found a close association between WBC numbers and mutation status and thus the aggressiveness of the disease.
The authors concluded, “We are constantly seeking to expand the dataset in order to strengthen the association between routine blood test results and genetic data and thus improve results in the future.”
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