Thiol/Disulfide Homeostasis as an Early Biomarker to Differentiate Sepsis from Pneumonia in Intensive Care Units.

BACKGROUND

It is possible that patients with pneumonia may also have sepsis and the separation of these two clinical entities may cause some trouble to clinicians.

OBJECTIVE

In order to separate a patient with pneumonia and a patient with sepsis, we qualify thiol/disulfide homeostasis as a potential biomarker.

METHODS

This study was designed between February 2018 - February 2019 prospectively. All patients in the intensive care unit with pneumonia and sepsis were enrolled in the study. At the time of hospitalization, thiol/disulfide homeostasis was measured. Patients diagnosed with sepsis and pneumonia were compared, in regards to thiol/disulfide homeostasis.

RESULTS

During research period, 103 patients with sepsis and 120 patients with pneumonia were enrolled into the study. When we compared native-thiol, total-thiol, and disulfide levels in both sepsis and pneumonia patients, we had similar results (p>0.05). In sepsis group, index-1 (disulfide/native thiol ratio) and index-2 (disulfide/total thiol ratio) were found to be statistically higher than the pneumonia group, and index-3 (native thiol/total thiol ratio) was statistically lower than the pneumonia group (p=0.020, p= 0.021, p=0.021, respectively).

CONCLUSION

In this study, we showed that thiol/disulfide homeostasis could be used as new markers in the early period in order to separate patients with sepsis and patients with pneumonia.