Influenza Case Study: Presentation Outline
The other diagnosis considered was pneumonia, but the patient lacked all of the symptoms corresponding to pneumonia (i.e. cough); similarly, the patient’s symptoms corresponded with the flu (i.e. fever, muscle soreness, lethargy, runny nose, and shortness of breath).
So, for these reasons, the patient was not started on oral antibiotics at the hospital.
Instead, the patient began a course of the aforementioned Tamiflu, despite laboratory supported data confirming that the patient had the flu. The reason for this decision is that laboratory-run viral cultures take 3-10 days to return to the clinician treating the patient, and Tamiflu useful only if administered within 48 hours of flu onset; this means that a course of Tamiflu must be started (and possibly finished) before the lab returns the patient’s results confirming or denying whether the patient has the flu.
Alternatively, the rapid flu testing {i.e. flu testing that only differentiates between flu strains A and B (i.e. the only strains that can be treated by extant antivirals)} takes between 15 and 30 minutes to yield results to the treating clinician.
Rapid flu testing can increase the accuracy of antiviral administration to patients, decreasing the cost of flu or flu-like symptom treatment by reducing the number of patients given antiviral medication who do not need or cannot benefit from the medication. This is significant because these antiviral medications are expensive (i.e. $30/day for five days), and five days are likely to have passed before traditional flu testing returns from the lab.
Therefore, rapid flu testing can increase the accuracy of treatment for patients with flu-like symptoms that do not have the flu, thereby improving their treatment experiences by keeping them from experiencing the side effects of antivirals that they do not need; and, rapid flu testing can save the healthcare industry ~$150 per patient misdiagnosed with the flu by preventing this unnecessary treatment with antivirals.
