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Ed Yeates reports
It's official! The Government
has awarded over four million
dollars to Utah researchers to
track dangerous group-A
strep infections in patients
over the next seven years.
The infections can lead to rheumatic fever, sepsis, toxic
shock, pneumonia, and a devastating condition where
the streptococcus bacteria rapidly chews away skin and
tissue.
Science Specialist Ed Yeates reports.
We'll find strains of streptoccocus bacteria doing their
thing every year.
For some kids, it's just a minor sore
throat that goes away. But others suffer more serious
complications, like rheumatic fever.
The disease appears to be cyclical. Utah's caseload
was high in the mid 1980's and again toward the end of
the 90's.
Doctors were checking potential heart valve
damage in lots of patients like 9-year-old Chelsea Rae
Adams.
HARRY HILL, M.D., U OF U PRINCIPAL
INVESTIGATOR: "WE'LL CERTAINLY BE
LOOKING FOR CHANGES IN THE ORGANISM
- IN THE MICROBIOLOGY OF THE
ORGANISM."
Dr. Harry Hill and his colleagues at the University of
Utah and Primary Children's Hospital will now take a
long, hard look at group-A strep.
How does it change
and become more potent? Why do the immune systems
in some people overreacte to infections, while others
don't?
ED YEATES, SCIENCE SPECIALIST: "IN
SINGLING OUT PATIENTS AND THEN
FOLLOWING THEM FOR SEVEN YEARS -
THIS POSSIBLY IS THE LARGEST STUDY
OF ITS KIND IN THE WORLD."
And the investigation will probe more than just
rheumatic fever.
DR. HILL: "WE WOULD LIKE VERY MUCH TO
HAVE APPROXIMATELY 30 PATIENTS PER
YEAR WITH RHEUMATIC FEVER, 20
PATIENTS PER YEAR WITH TOXIC,
INVASIVE STREP INFECTIONS."
Those invasive infections include toxic shock, sepsis
and necrotizing fasciitis or what some call "the flesh
eating" disease.
This strain eats away tissue and can kill
its victim in just a matter of hours.
Seven years later,
BYU professor David Cowles counts himself lucky to
be a survivor of the flesh eater.
DR. HILL: "WHEN WE HAVE ONE OF THESE
VERY SERIOUS INVASIVE CASES COME
INTO THE HOSPITAL AND WE TREAT THEM
WITH VERY HIGH LEVELS OF PENICILLIN
AND OTHER SUITABLE ANTIBIOTICS,
THERE IS STILL A VERY HIGH
MORTALITY RATE."
As they follow almost a thousand patients with
group-A infections over the next seven years, the
research team hopes to find clues - clues which
might help others develop a vaccine against the
bacteria.
The Utah research team will work in partnership with
scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, which operates a specialized
laboratory in Hamilton, Montana.
April 14, 2002
