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. 2023 Jun 30;23(1):226.
doi: 10.1186/s12871-023-02187-w.

Point-of-care pancreatic stone protein measurement in critically ill COVID-19 patients

Gabriele Melegari  1 , Enrico Giuliani  2 , Giulia Di Pietro  3 , Francesco Alberti  3 , Mattia Campitiello  3 , Elisabetta Bertellini  4 ; Consortium; Alberto Barbieri  3
Collaborators, Affiliations

Point-of-care pancreatic stone protein measurement in critically ill COVID-19 patients

Gabriele Melegari et al. BMC Anesthesiol. .

Abstract

Introduction: Pancreatic stone protein (PSP) is a novel biomarker that is reported to be increased in pneumonia and acute conditions. The primary aim of this study was to prospectively study plasma levels of PSP in a COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) population to determine how well PSP performed as a marker of mortality in comparison to other plasma biomarkers, such as C reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT).

Methods: We collected clinical data and blood samples from COVID-19 ICU patients at the time of admission (T0), 72 h later (T1), five days later (T2), and finally, seven days later. The PSP plasma level was measured with a point-of-care system; PCT and CRP levels were measured simultaneously with laboratory tests. The inclusion criteria were being a critical COVID-19 ICU patient requiring ventilatory mechanical assistance.

Results: We enrolled 21 patients and evaluated 80 blood samples; we found an increase in PSP plasma levels according to mixed model analysis over time (p < 0.001), with higher levels found in the nonsurvivor population (p < 0.001). Plasma PSP levels achieved a statistically significant result in terms of the AUROC, with a value higher than 0.7 at T0, T1, T2, and T3. The overall AUROC of PSP was 0.8271 (CI (0.73-0.93), p < 0.001). These results were not observed for CRP and PCT.

Conclusion: These first results suggest the potential advantages of monitoring PSP plasma levels through point-of-care technology, which could be useful in the absence of a specific COVID-19 biomarker. Additional data are needed to confirm these results.

Keywords: COVID-19-ICU patients; Mortality predictor; Pancreatic Stone Protein.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors declare non conflict of interest:

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Shows the Kaplan Meier survival estimate of the study population and at-risk number in the Cox model
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Shows the postestimation margin plot of the repeated measures mixed model between survivors and non-survivors for PSP (panel A), PCT (panel B), and CRP (panel C)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Shows the postestimation margin plots, with the probability of death plotted on the y-axis and the level of PSP (panel A), PCT (panel B) and CRP (panel C) plotted on the x-axis. Panel D shows the overall AUROC comparison for PSP, PCT and CRP
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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