美国国家公共电台 NPR Spit Test May Reveal The Severity Of A Child's Concussion

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Every year, more than 1 million children and adolescents sustain a concussion¹. The symptoms may vanish in days or last for months. And right now, doctors usually cannot predict how long the recovery will take. That could be changing. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on an experimental concussion test that uses a child's saliva².

JON HAMILTON, BYLINE³: Doctors at Penn State Hershey Medical Center see a lot of young people with concussions⁴, also known as mild traumatic brain injuries. Steven Hicks is a pediatrician at Penn State. He says most kids get better in a few days but some don't.

STEVEN HICKS: Roughly 15 to 25 percent go on to have these prolonged headaches, fatigue⁵, nausea⁶. And those symptoms can last sometimes 1 to 4 months.

HAMILTON: Hicks says the problem is he doesn't know which kids are going to have long-term problems.

HICKS: Parents often say that their biggest concern is, when is my child going to be back to normal again? And that's something we have a very difficult time predicting.

HAMILTON: So Hicks and a team of researchers have been looking for some kind of lab test that could help. They knew that after a concussion, injured brain cells try to heal themselves. As a part of this process, cells release tiny fragments of genetic⁷ material called microRNAs. Researchers realized that some of these fragments also turn up in blood and even saliva. So Hicks says they did an experiment that involved 50 concussion patients between 7 and 18.

HICKS: When they came to our medical center and received the diagnosis⁸ of concussion, we evaluated them with some standard survey-based tools. And then we also got a sample of their saliva.

HAMILTON: Usually about a week after the injury. The team measured levels of many different microRNAs. And eventually, they found a handful that let them predict with nearly 90 percent accuracy whether a child would still have symptoms a month after an injury. Hicks says one microRNA even predicted a specific type of concussion symptom.

HICKS: Those children who had the most altered levels reported a lot of difficulties with memory and also with problem solving.

HAMILTON: Hicks, who consults for a company that hopes to market a concussion test, says the results need to be confirmed in a larger study. But he says if the approach works...

HICKS: A pediatrician could collect saliva with a swab, put it in a package and send it off to the lab and then be able to call the family the next day.

HAMILTON: The research is being presented this week at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in San Francisco. Manish Bhomia is an adjunct assistant professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. He says a lab test for concussions could improve care for young people who don't have obvious symptoms.

MANISH BHOMIA: A lot of children get mild concussions. Oftentimes, actually, it goes ignored.

HAMILTON: Bhomia says his own research confirms that microRNAs are a promising⁹ way to assess brain injuries. But he's not sure saliva is the best place to find them. Bhomia says blood, which tends to have more microRNAs than saliva, might allow an even more accurate concussion test. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF WMD'S "ALL AGAIN")

1 concussion   

n.脑震荡；震动

参考例句：

• He was carried off the field with slight concussion.他因轻微脑震荡给抬离了现场。
• She suffers from brain concussion.她得了脑震荡。

2 saliva   

n.唾液，口水

参考例句：

• He wiped a dribble of saliva from his chin.他擦掉了下巴上的几滴口水。
• Saliva dribbled from the baby's mouth.唾液从婴儿的嘴里流了出来。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 concussions   

n.震荡( concussion的名词复数 )；脑震荡；冲击；震动

参考例句：

• People who have concussions often trouble thinking or remembering. 患脑震荡的人通常存在思考和记忆障碍。 来自互联网
• Concussions also make a person feel very tired or angry. 脑震荡也会使人感觉疲倦或愤怒。 来自互联网

5 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

6 nausea   

n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶)

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕期常有恶心的现象。
• He experienced nausea after eating octopus.吃了章鱼后他感到恶心。

7 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

8 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

9 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。