Pancreatic stone protein for early mortality prediction in COVID-19 patients. Author: Van Singer

Abstract

Pancreatic stone protein (PSP) is a novel biomarker for infection and sepsis with promising results in various clinical settings. 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. Recently, serial measurement of PSP in patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) allowed early detection of sepsis. In a small case series, PSP daily monitoring was suggested as a marker of sepsis in critically ill COVID-19 patients.

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, 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 reverse-transcription PCR-confirmed COVID-19.