Proadrenomedullin for prediction of early and mid-term mortality in patients hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia.

OBJECTIVES

Our study sought to determine the usefulness of biomarkers of systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT) and proadrenomedullin (proADM)) on hospital admission, as compared to the CURB65 score, for predicting 30- and 90-day mortality in patients hospitalized for community acquired pneumonia (CAP).

METHODS

Observational, prospective study of adults admitted for CAP in four Spanish teaching hospitals. Disease severity was determined within the first 24 h of diagnosis, using the CURB65 score. CRP, PCT and proADM levels were assessed from samples obtained in the Emergency Department (ED). We compared the capacity of the different biomarkers and the CURB65 score to predict pneumonia-related 30- and 90-day mortality.

RESULTS

A total of 956 patients hospitalized with CAP were included, 462 in the internal and 494 in the external sample. Of the biomarkers, proADM showed the greatest AUC for predicting 30- and 90-day mortality (0.80 and 0.76 respectively). Mortality at 30 and 90 days increased as proADM levels rose. When proADM was used as a continuous variable, CURB65 showed a similar predictive capacity (AUC 0.80) to both crude and age-adjusted proADM (AUC 0.80 and 0.83 respectively) for 30-day mortality. The same was also true for 90-day mortality. However, proADM used as a categorical variable had a greater predictive capacity for 90-day mortality than the CURB65 score (<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Amongst patients admitted for CAP, the use of proADM obtained in the ED may be useful for identifying patients at greatest risk of mortality, with a similar predictive capacity to the CURB65 score.