Prospective Study for the Evaluation of Dengue Prognostic Biomarkers in Singapore

Detailed Summary

World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified Dengue as the fastest spreading mosquito-borne disease in the world. This study follows on from the National Medical Research Council STOP Dengue Translational and Clinical Research flagship grant. Differential serum concentrations of alpha2-macroglobulin (A2M), chymase (CMA1) and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) were discovered to accurately identify dengue patients who will develop severe disease from those who will not, prior to the development of severe complications. By identifying patients at risk of developing severe disease in advance, these patients can be monitored more closely to provide more timely fluid interventions, and hopefully further reduce fatality rate. At the same time, more patients who are not at risk can be managed as outpatients to further minimize unnecessary hospitalization costs and wastage of healthcare resources. After discovery of the Dengue prognostic biomarkers, a multivariate logistic regression predictive model was built from a small retrospective derivative cohort (50 subjects), followed by validation using a small prospective validation cohort (50 subjects). The model had a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve AUC (area under the curve) of 0.944, and a sensitivity and specificity of 90% and 91% during validation, respectively. The premise of this study is to validate our observations in a larger prospective cohort (200 subjects). At the same time, we would like to better understand the characteristics of the Dengue prognostic biomarkers, especially whether there are situations in which the biomarkers cannot predict Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF)/ Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS) and/or Severe Dengue (SD) and how the biomarkers can further improve the cost-effectiveness of the clinical management of Dengue patients.

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