technology
The colour of pain
Australian scientists have
discovered a way to see pain
and judge its severity.
Mark Hutchinson interviewed
by Dallas Bastian
A
new blood test that looks at the colour of a patient’s pain
will be able to notify health professionals of the pain’s
severity within minutes.
The on-the-spot test is able to identify chronic pain by looking
at colour biomarkers in the blood.
The University of Adelaide’s Professor Mark Hutchinson, who
developed the test with an Australian-based team, said they found
that persistent chronic pain has a different natural colour in immune
cells than cases where there isn’t persistent pain. “We are literally
quantifying the colour of pain,” he explained.
Hutchinson said the new tool, called the painHS test, not only
allows for greater certainty of diagnosis but can also guide better
drug treatment options. “This gives us a brand new window into
patients’ pain,” he added.
The neuroscientist told an Australian and New Zealand College
of Anaesthetists meeting that the test would also benefit the
diagnosis of pain in people with dementia who are unable to
communicate the extent or source of their pain.
The test uses light measurement tools (hyperspectral imaging
analysis) to identify the molecular structures of what pain looks like in
blood cells. But Hutchinson stressed that the test could never replace
the importance of having patients describe and discuss their pain.
“Self-reporting is still going to be key, but what this does mean
is that those ‘forgotten people’ who are unable to communicate
their pain conditions – such as babies or people with dementia –
can now hav