New research is transforming how Rocky Mountain spotted fever is diagnosed.

The new method detects the deadly tick-borne disease in just 40 minutes—a leap that could help patients get lifesaving treatment sooner.

Early diagnosis of Rocky Mountain spotted fever is critical. Patients can go from a tick bite to a severe fever, headache, and rash within days. Yet existing diagnostic tools can be expensive, hard to access, or unable to detect small amounts of the bacteria in a blood sample.

The new method changes that, delivering clearer answers when they matter most.

The test, which involves mixing DNA from a sample with specialized reagents in two quick, 20-minute steps, can be completed at room temperature without the need for complex and costly laboratory equipment. After 40 minutes, a change in liquid color indicates a positive detection of the bacteria.

The antibiotic doxycycline is used to treat the disease, and clinicians often prescribe it while waiting on confirmatory testing. Right now, that can take too long.

“Unfortunately, this disease can be particularly deadly in children if diagnosis is delayed, and often patients may not realize they have been bitten by a tick until they feel extremely ill,” says Roman Ganta, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and investigator in the Bond Life Sciences Center.

“Quicker diagnosis leads to quicker treatment with doxycycline, so we are hopeful our research can improve outcomes for those impacted.”

Ganta hopes this test will eventually be used in rural or under-resourced clinics around the world where the advanced laboratory equipment currently needed to detect Rocky Mountain spotted fever is inaccessible. He is in discussions with the Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory at Mizzou to see whether this test may be utilized in clinical applications in the future.

“By making this test more accessible, more patients can benefit from our work one day,” Ganta says.

The study appears in Frontiers in Microbiology.

Source: University of Missouri