Pilot study to determine feasibility of development of an influenza clinical diagnostic tool

摘要

Background: Influenza is a costly healthcare burden worldwide. Diagnosing influenza in a timely and accurate manner allows the proper appropriation of scarce healthcare resources and antiviral medications. Unfortunately, current testing technologies are either insensitive (rapid antigen tests), nonspecific (clinical diagnosis) or untimely and expensive (rt-PCR). Ultimately, treatment and management decisions for influenza are suboptimal due to lack of diagnostic accuracy. The need for differentiating influenza from other viral infections led us to the hypothesis that influenza may have a large affect on certain vital signs allowing development of a clinical diagnostic tool.