Researchers Plan Major Review Linking Symptoms to Blood Protein Patterns
Scientists are mapping how physical symptoms correlate with measurable proteins in the blood across multiple diseases—a step toward personalized diagnosis. The emerging field could reshape how companies develop diagnostic tools and help clinicians move beyond guesswork to precision medicine.
Originaltitel: Associations between self-reported symptoms and circulating protein biomarkers: A scoping review protocol.
Kartläggning av proteinbiomarkörer för patientrapporterade symtom öppnar vägen för precision medicine inom vården. Karolinska Institutet genomför en omfattande scoping review för att koppla självrapporterade symtom till cirkulerande proteinbiomarkörer i blod — en syn som hittills fragmenterats över sjukdomsspecifika studier. Forskarna söker ursprungliga artiklar från PubMed, CINAHL, Embase och Web of Science. En pilotsökning identifierade över 30 000 artiklar, vilket gjorde AI-assisterad screening via ASReview nödvändig för tidseffektivitet. Fem reviewers kommer att extrahera och kartlägga associationer mellan enskilda symtom och proteinmarkörer för att identifiera överordnade biologiska mönster. Resultaten blir relevanta för inköpschefer som evaluerar nya biomarkörplattformar, regulatoriska specialister som bedömer diagnostiska algoritmer, och kliniker som söker evidens för symtombaserad stratifiering. Studien lanseras 2026.
BACKGROUND: Studies linking self-reported symptoms to circulating protein biomarkers are increasing, partly driven by the rising number of protein biomarkers being identified. Despite research advances, current reviews that synthesise these studies are typically disease-specific. A broader, diagnosis-agnostic and multidisciplinary scoping review can uncover shared biological patterns associated with symptoms across different conditions and can generate insights that advance precision health and symptom science. This scoping review protocol builds on this need for a broad approach as it aims to consolidate current knowledge on self-reported symptom and circulating protein biomarker associations, identify potential patterns, and provide relevant insights for clinical practice and future research. METHODS: The protocol is aligned with the PRISMA and JBI guidelines for scoping reviews. The search strategy includes original peer-reviewed journal research articles examining associations between self-reported symptoms and protein biomarkers in blood plasma or serum. Searches will be conducted from PubMed, CINAHL, Embase, and Web of Science databases. A preliminary search retrieved more than 30,000 articles, prompting a pilot test of the Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted review screening tool ASReview. The pilot demonstrated time savings, refined methodological decisions, and confirmed the feasibility of proceeding with the review. Therefore, screening will be conducted using ASReview, with a total of five reviewers involved in the process. Data extraction will focus on single self-reported symptoms and circulating protein biomarker pairs that have a reported association. Analysis will involve counting and mapping these associations to identify potential patterns. The protocol was registered with the Open Science Framework (OSF) https://osf.io/bku3f. DISCUSSION: This protocol provides a structured and transparent approach for conducting a large-scale scoping review. By adhering to established guidelines, the protocol provides a more comprehensive, standardised, exact, and reproducible accumulation of knowledge, while acknowledging potential limitations. The expected results can contribute to summarise the current understanding of associations between self-reported symptoms and circulating protein biomarkers. This fosters the integration of symptom science and the omics field, specifically proteomics, to advance precision health.