Doctoral student's study Ghadeer Alhamar on new prevention strategies
10 May 2022 - A study conducted byUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di RomaIn partnership with Sapienza University of Rome, with the Dasman Diabetes Institute, with Kuwait University and the Kuwait Ministry of Health, calculated a clinical risk score to predict when COVID-19 patients are most likely to progress to death.
SARs-CoV-2, which causes the coronavirus disease called Covid-19, has spread globally in a very short time and has led the WHO to classify it as a global pandemic. The speed and ease of its transmission differentiate this virus from previous coronaviruses, and the unprecedented health outcomes have stimulated the development of potential treatments, but above all of prevention strategies. With this in mind, an international team of researchers has defined a clinical risk score, i.e. the percentage of probability of death - in case of positivity to the SARs-CoV-2 virus - in relation to the glucose levels present in the blood. The study was published in Diabetes Metabolism Research and Reviews by a group of Kuwaiti and Italian researchers fromUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, of the Sapienza University of Rome, of the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait, of the University of Kuwait and of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health, coordinated by teacher Paolo Pozzilli.
First signatory of the study is Ghadeer Alhamar, Kuwaiti doctoral student fromUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma. “We suggest that this risk score can help doctors properly manage treatments and carefully monitor patients who are more likely to develop severe and dangerous COVID-19 symptoms,” explains Alhamar. The result led to define that gender, nationality, asthma and blood glucose levels (blood sugar above 126 mg/dl) are factors that increase the risk scorei.e. the probability of death. In particular: the probability of death was 34,4% higher in subjects who showed glucose levels between 126 mg/dl and 200 mg/dl and 44,3% in cases in which the measured blood sugar was higher than 200 mg/dl, regardless of diabetic status. The risk score was constructed using i data of 417 patients hospitalized in Kuwait, was validated with a second group of 923 patients of the same nationality and with a third group composed of 178 Italian patients. "Comparing two very different populations is essential to assess the real risk of developing severe COVID-19 and to build a score that can be used internationally," stresses Alhamar, who mainly deals with Type 1 diabetes. The data collection began when the pandemic was at its peak: "We have been working on this research for more than a year. The role of Kuwaiti research institutes and the Universities Campus Bio-Medico, Sapienza and Kuwait University has been decisive. Without guidance and without continued collaboration we would not have been able to develop this risk score and then publish our work. I am grateful to all the people who made this research possible," concludes Alhamar.
