BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to assess the role of prehospital point-of-care -terminal probrain natriuretic peptide to predict sepsis, septic shock, or in-hospital sepsis-related mortality.

METHODS

A prospective, emergency medical service-delivered, prognostic, cohort study of adults evacuated by ambulance and admitted to emergency department between January 2020 and May 2021. The discriminative power of the predictive variable was assessed through a prediction model trained using the derivation cohort and evaluated by the area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic on the validation cohort.

RESULTS

A total of 1,360 patients were enrolled with medical disease in the study. The occurrence of sepsis, septic shock, and in-hospital sepsis-related mortality was 6.4% (67 cases), 4.2% (44 cases), and 6.1% (64 cases). Prehospital National Early Warning Score 2 had superior predictive validity than quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment and -terminal probrain natriuretic peptide for detecting sepsis and septic shock, but -terminal probrain natriuretic peptide outperformed both scores in in-hospital sepsis-related mortality estimation. Application of -terminal probrain natriuretic peptide to subgroups of the other two scores improved the identification of sepsis, septic shock, and sepsis-related mortality in the group of patients with low-risk scoring.

CONCLUSIONS

The incorporation of -terminal probrain natriuretic peptide in prehospital care combined with already existing scores could improve the identification of sepsis, septic shock, and sepsis-related mortality.