We do not know the etiology of many diseases. For example Crohn's disease. For that are doing a lot of risk factor analyses studying whether a particular factor is predictive or protective.
My question is, are there any similar studies done for infectious diseases where the etiology is known. Were they done when the etiology wasn't yet known? If done, would they too turn out to be having many risk factors? After all, isn't the susceptibility to and prognosis of a disease too dependant on the persons HLA, immune system, genetics and what not!
So my question is have such studies been done? When do we get to know that a particular disease is multifactorial and when not?
Many such studies looking at risk factors have been done for common infectious diseases, although most of this data traditionally has come from Western countries (even though this does not reflect infectious disease burden). It is generally acknowledged that most such diseases are multifactorial, and many studies look at easy to collect clinical data e.g. patient characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, age, etc. and the effect of these on disease occurrence or severity.
As for other risk factors these are often also investigated, but of course getting genetic data or biomarker info from blood samples for example, is more difficult. This is being done where previous research suggests these may be risk factors, e.g. particular oncological conditions - and for this the research ethics/planning is more difficult. The evolution of numerous BioBanks in the UK/US (where blood samples are stored for research purposes) demonstrates the way research is evolving to inform epidemiology and clinical research.
All of these different risk factors can be pooled together in various statistical analyses; for instance a multivariable regression analysis - to adjust for the presence of multiple factors i.e. if you include age, gender, and ethnicity in one multivariable model, looking at how these relate to prevalence of HIV/AIDS - you will get the effect of each of these variables on the outcome, whilst adjusting for the remaining variables. Using such methods, many different risk factors can be investigated whilst taking account for other factors at the same time.
I totally agree, I feel like the multivariable point is really intrinsic to this discussion. It is absolutely paramount and tantamount to pool together the potpourri of the different aforementioned risk factors in order to truly identify and adjust the effects that these variables have on clinical outcomes following infectious disease. Enthralling discussion, hope to work together in the future. Great work. Take care.
There are numerous factors, but one of the most important is postchemotherapy febrile neutropenia.
Article Febrile neutropenia in patients with hematological malignanc...
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