Quick and inexpensive microRNA analyses may be able to help predict severe complications in patients hospitalised with community acquired pneumonia (CAP).
The 2019 ERS Congress was told specific miRNAs were associated with different pneumonia endotypes and could help differentiate which patients were likely to develop sepsis or acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure.
The Spanish study used PCR techniques to analyse blood samples from 169 CAP patients at the time of their hospital admission.
Patients were a mean age of 67 years and many had comorbidities such as diabetes (29%) and COPD (28%).
Most patients (64.5%) developed complications during their admission – 13.6% developed severe sepsis and 25.4% developed respiratory failure. Deaths occurred in 4% of patients.
Pulmonologist Dr Francisco Sanz, from the Consorci University Hospital in Valencia, said three miRNAs were shown to have some predictive ability regarding complications.
MiRNA 223 was able to predict the onset of sepsis with a 78% accuracy and miRNA 574 was able to predict respiratory failure with a similar level of accuracy (77%).
MiRNA 182 was able to predict both complications with a high rate of accuracy – 83% for sepsis and 76% for respiratory failure.
Dr Sanz said the value of the tests was that they could be used as biomarkers at the time of admission to guide more intensive support and monitoring measures for at-risk patients.