Diagnosis Value Of Circulating Mirnas For Predicting Pneumonia-Associated Sepsis In Elderly Patients

Objective To evaluate the predicting value of circulating miRNAs for sepsis secondary to pneumonia in elderly patients. Methods From April 2016 to January 2017, 44 cases with sepsis secondary to pneumonia, 52 elderly patients with pneumonia and 21 healthy older adults as control were involved in this study.The expression levels of MiRNA-150-5p, miRNA-25-3p, miRNA-122-5p and miRNA-223-3p in plasma were evaluated by fluorescence quantitative PCR.The demographic characteristics, sequential organ failure assessment(SOFA)scores, prognosis and days stayed in ICU were recorded.The area under the receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was used to calculated the specificity and sensitivity of miRNA in identifying sepsis-associated pneumonia. Results There were significantly differences among levels of circulating miRNA-223-3p in pneumonia, sepsis and healthy control groups(F=36.441, P=0.000), ΔCT values were 2.39±1.36, 1.44±1.43, and 4.58±0.91, respectively.The relative expression levels of miRNA-223-3p in the three groups were significantly different(P=0.000), which were 0.189(0.107, 0.367), 0.361(0.221, 0.735), and 0.044(0.022, 0.061), respectively.The AUC of miRNA-223-3p for predicting sepsis from pneumonia was 0.964(95%CI=0.925-1.000). At a cutoff value of 2.759, miRNA-223-3p yielded a sensitivity of 82.9% and a specificity of 100.0%. Conclusions MiRNA-223-3p expression is up-regulated in patients with sepsis secondary to pneumonia compared to that of patients with pneumonia, and it could be used to predict sepsis associated pneumonia. Key words: Pneumonia; Sepsis; Micro RNAs