suPAR at the University Hospital of Salamanca
Wed Feb 17 2021
The Salamanca University Assistance Complex has been one of the first hospitals in Spain to introduce suPAR in its test catalog.
At the end of last year they conducted an interesting study on how suPAR can help improve triage, differentiating the less serious patients, who can be safely discharged, from the more serious ones who need immediate hospitalization. Since October 13, they have had suPAR installed in a Roche Cobas 501 analyzer in the Emergency Laboratory, within the Central Laboratory.
We asked both in the Laboratory and in the ER about their short but intense experience with suPAR:
Dra. Aldegunde (Urgency Laboratory): “We have suPAR since 2019, before the Covid pandemic, and it was in October 2020 when we implemented it in the Service Portfolio available to all petitioners. Since then we have focused primarily on Covid patients. We have had days of up to 20 measurements in the middle of the second wave but currently we are in 5-7 measurements a day. The technique is simple and fast. Our response time is short and the Cobas 501 takes less than 15 minutes to produce results. ”
Dr. Arévalo (Urgency dept): “We collect data continuously and we have already been able to draw some conclusions. We have been able to verify a clear relationship between suPAR and patient prognosis and also a good relationship with other biomarkers, especially CRP. We are struck, although it was to be expected, by the high levels of suPAR among the most serious patients and the deceased. Every day we know more about Covid and the management of patients. New studies of more or less effective treatments are constantly emerging. suPAR is proving useful to detect, above all, patients with a worse prognosis and to differentiate them from those who, probably, will not present a serious disease.”
“We have been able to verify a clear relationship between suPAR and patient prognosis and also a good relationship with other biomarkers, especially CRP. We are struck, although it was to be expected, by the high levels of suPAR among the most serious patients and the deceased.”
Dr. Arévalo
Dr. Borrás (Chief of Urgency Dept): “I remember a 91-year-old patient, the family of a former resident, who arrived at the hospital with a positive Covid test but without symptoms. When taking analytics we found a suPAR of 25, the rest of the parameters were not significant. The former resident asked me what my opinion was and I told him that she had a bad prognosis. After 48 hours he came to my office to tell me that the patient had deteriorated rapidly and that she was very serious. The next day she passed away.”
Dr. Moyano (Chief of Unit Laboratory Coordinator): “From the Clinical Laboratory, with the implementation of suPAR in our Service Portfolio, we are satisfied to have been able to complete one of our missions (PCTC) based on the improvement of patient care, with the Clinical Dialogue with the Health Doctors and the implementation of new Analytical Techniques with Quality criteria.”
