L2M NSERC - High Affinity Inhibitors for the Diagnosis of Heparin Induced Thrombocytopenia

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is an antibody-mediated adverse drug reaction to the anticoagulant heparin. Immediate diagnosis and treatment is crucial as 20-50% of HIT patients will develop blood clots, which are fatal in 30% of patients. However, doctors struggle to diagnose HIT because it is difficult to detect clinically significant antibodies in patients. Most patients exposed to heparin will produce some form of antibody, but only a small percentage of these antibodies cause HIT. Currently, HIT diagnostic tests are limited by either diagnostic accuracy or performance feasibility. Immunoassay tests have high false-positive rates and cause many patients to receive unnecessary treatment. Conversely, functional tests are laborious, technically challenging, and can delay diagnosis. As such, many physicians will administer treatment before receiving laboratory confirmation, which can have adverse side-effects for patients. For hospitals, the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of HIT is also associated with an increased financial burden. To alleviate this problem, we designed an inhibitor that can be used detect the presence of disease-causing HIT antibodies by competing for their binding in a standard immunoassay. These inhibitors can be used to improve already existing immunoassay-based diagnostics to increase their current performance. Therefore, our test will have faster turn-around times and can be performed with technical ease at any clinical laboratory. This product will also provide a quick and cost-effective solution without compromising patient outcomes.