Personalized medicine in severe influenza

Area of Science:

• Immunology
• Infectious Diseases
• Theranostics

Background:

• Influenza A virus (IAV) infection can cause severe respiratory failure in young adults due to exaggerated inflammatory responses.
• Current therapies are often ineffective, and mortality remains high despite treatment.
• Steroids are not recommended due to lack of survival benefit and risk of superinfections.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the need for individualized therapeutic approaches in infectious diseases, particularly for Influenza A virus (IAV) pneumonia.
• To emphasize the limitations of current anti-inflammatory strategies and the inadequacy of clinical judgment alone.
• To advocate for the development and use of novel biomarkers for monitoring host response and predicting disease severity.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on Influenza A virus (IAV) pathogenesis and treatment.
• Discussion of the role of innate immune response pathways (TLR7, RIG-I, NF-κB) in IAV infection.
• Exploration of the potential of theranostics and advanced biomarkers (proteomics, transcriptomics) over traditional lactate measurements.

Main Results:

• IAV infection triggers a pro-inflammatory response mediated by viral RNA recognition.
• Generalized anti-inflammatory therapies have shown unsatisfactory results.
• Biomarkers are crucial for predicting severity and mortality, with a shift towards omics technologies.

Conclusions:

• Personalized medicine and theranostics are essential for managing infectious diseases like IAV pneumonia.
• Novel biomarkers are urgently needed to guide treatment decisions and improve patient outcomes.
• Future research should focus on identifying specific patient subsets who would benefit from adjunctive therapies for IAV pneumonia.