PHOENIX — A new test will help doctors diagnose the respiratory illness known as Valley fever within just 10 minutes.
Valley fever is a serious lung infection that’s caused by breathing in fungus found in dry soil and is prevalent across Arizona and the Southwest region.
The symptoms of the illness often have similar presentation to pneumonia or the flu, which can lead to misdiagnosis.
“If you could determine today that you had Valley fever, then you would not be started on an antibacterial drug. That’s not going to help you. It might even hurt you because we’re trying to treat a fungus,” Microbiology co-director at Mayo Clinic Thomas Grys said.
“Many people who are otherwise healthy don’t even require treatment with anything. If you do need treatment, it would be an antifungal drug. It’s a completely different treatment than you would otherwise get without this knowledge.”
More details on development of Valley fever test
A person with Valley fever can have zero symptoms, but in some cases the infection can spread to the brain, bones, or spine and can even become fatal.
Patients with Valley fever often end up making multiple trips to the doctor before they are tested for the illness, Grys said.
The Valley fever test works by detecting antibodies, which can save valuable time.
“That’s why the average time to diagnosis is about 23 days,” Grys said. “If we could detect (and) think about testing that sooner, because we can get that result same day … we could really shorten that and that would be impactful.”
The Mayo Clinic and Arizona State University partnered up to develop the test, which took about five years to create, according to Grys.
The new tests were licensed to a startup company and are expected to roll out by the end of the year.
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