Researchers are testing a new method which could allow doctors to diagnose patients, in order to see which of them need antibiotic treatment before pneumonia shows up. This makes use of gene chips, which are also known as microrays - a technology which has been used for more than a decade in labs to study genetic variations and how particular genes are turned on and off among humans. This technology is already being used in some cases. For example, in 2007 in the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of a microray called MammaPrint, which enables oncologists to predict whether a woman’s breast cancer might return.

The team of researchers has had some good results with using microrays in an ICU before patients developed symptomes of ventilator-associated penumonia, but, despite this fact, using microrays to diagnose infection is not currently practical. Even though the cost of using this technology is less than 1000$ per patient, which is lower than CT scans in the ICU. The problem is that the results come in several days, which is too long to diagnose an infection.

Still, researchers are optimistic, and they are planning to put this new method into clinical trials. Their hope is that one day they’ll enable doctors to diagnose patients much easier, to identify is they’ve suffered a heart attack, or even record changes in gene activity and see how your immune system is doing. What is more, doctors could use this technology to monitor diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, because the immune cells that fight infection are quite often the same ones which cause inflammation.