key: cord-0968594-j3cva7bz
authors: Van Singer, Mathias; Brahier, Thomas; Brochu Vez, Marie-Josée; Gerhard Donnet, Hélène; Hugli, Olivier; Boillat-Blanco, Noémie
title: Pancreatic stone protein for early mortality prediction in COVID-19 patients
date: 2021-07-29
journal: Crit Care
DOI: 10.1186/s13054-021-03704-4
sha: f35aa0c43f179056347cf5a4dae9943454ac9394
doc_id: 968594
cord_uid: j3cva7bz

nan

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is straining health care systems since December 2019 [1] . Tools to identify patients at risk of adverse outcome could optimize resource allocation.

Pancreatic stone protein (PSP) is a novel biomarker for infection and sepsis with promising results in various clinical settings [2] . A meta-analysis showed that PSP performed better than C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin for detecting infection among hospitalized patients, and that the combination of PSP and CRP further enhanced its accuracy [3] . Recently, serial measurement of PSP in patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) allowed early detection of sepsis [4] . In a small case series, PSP daily monitoring was suggested as a marker of sepsis in critically ill COVID-19 patients [5] .

In this prospective cohort study of COVID-19 patients in the emergency department (ED) of a teaching hospital in Switzerland, we assessed the accuracy of bedside clinical severity scores (Quick Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) and CRB-65), PSP and CRP, which is associated with severity and mortality in COVID-19 [6] , at clinical presentation for 7-day mortality and separately, ICU admission. Consecutive patients (≥ 18 years old) with symptoms of acute lower respiratory tract infection, were prospectively included in case of reversetranscription PCR-confirmed COVID-19.

PSP was retrospectively measured in − 80° stored plasma collected in the ED (nanofluidic point-of-care immunoassay; abioSCOPE ® , Abionic SA, Epalinges, Switzerland). CRP plasma concentration was determined upon admission via routine testing (immunoturbidimetrics determination; Cobas 8000 platform; Roche Diagnostics, Basel, Switzerland).

The predictive accuracy of clinical scores and host biomarkers was defined by the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUROC). Optimal cut-offs for sensitivity and specificity were determined using the Youden index. The combinatorial models were compared using the DeLong method.

All analyses were performed with STATA (version 15.0, Stata Corp, College Station, TX, USA) and R Core Team (2021). The Ethics Committee of the Vaud canton approved the study (CER-VD 2019-02283) and all patients gave their written informed consent.

Of the 173 patients included, 12 (6.9%) died (7 had limitations of life-sustaining treatment precluding ICU admission) and 37 (21.6%) were admitted to the ICU by day 7 (Table 1) The main limitations of our study are its monocentric design and the small number of patient meeting primary outcome.

CRB-65, CRP and PSP in the ED have an excellent accuracy to rule out early mortality in COVID-19. Combining CRB-65 and either biomarker improved their prognostic accuracy. As reported for sepsis, PSP appears to be a good biomarker to exclude short term risk of death [2] , but not to exclude ICU admission in the context of COVID-19, suggesting different pathophysiological pathways for end-organ damage. Further research is needed to determine the clinical significance of PSP in the context of COVID-19 and its potential role as triage tool. 

Fair allocation of scarce medical resources in the time of Covid-19

Measurement of pancreatic stone protein in the identification and management of sepsis

Accuracy of pancreatic stone protein for the diagnosis of infection in hospitalized adults: a systematic review and individual patient level meta-analysis

Serial measurement of pancreatic stone protein for the early detection of sepsis in intensive care unit patients: a prospective multicentric study

Potential role of Pancreatic Stone Protein (PSP) as early marker of bacterial infection in COVID-19 patients

The role of biomarkers in diagnosis of COVID-19-a systematic review

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We thank all the patients who accepted to participate and make this study possible. We thank Professor Carron, head of the emergency department, who supported the study. We thank all health care workers of the Emergency Department, Internal Medicine Ward, Infectious Disease Service, and Intensive Care Unit of the University Hospital of Lausanne, who managed patients with COVID-19. We thank Siméon Schaad, Luca Bosso, and Tanguy Espejo for helping in recruiting patients in the emergency department. 1 

Authors' contributions NBB, OH, TB and MVS were involved in the study conception, study design, data analysis, data interpretation, and manuscript writing. MJBV and HGD were involved for the acquisition of the data and critical review of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

This work was supported in part by an academic award of the Leenaards Foundation (to NBB) and by the Foundation of Lausanne University Hospital (to NBB); Abionic SA supported the work by providing free of charge the abioSCOPE ® and reactant for PSP dosing. The funding bodies had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, and in writing the manuscript.

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

The study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Vaud canton (CER-VD 2019-02283) and all patients signed an informed consent form.

Not applicable.

The authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest.