Critical care clinics
-
Critical illness syndromes, including sepsis and the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), are identified using consensus definitions that are based on broad, clinically available criteria and include patients with heterogeneous biology. This heterogeneity is a barrier to developing and testing effective therapies for these syndromes. ⋯ These molecular phenotypes are associated with differences in mortality and predict response to several treatments in retrospective analyses of clinical trials. Biomarkers can be used for prognostic and predictive enrichment of clinical trials in critical illness to incorporate precision medicine in critical care.
-
Biomarker panels have the potential to advance the field of critical care medicine by stratifying patients according to prognosis and/or underlying pathophysiology. This article discusses the discovery and validation of biomarker panels, along with their translation to the clinical setting. The current literature on the use of biomarker panels in sepsis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and acute kidney injury is reviewed.
-
Right ventricular failure is common in critically ill patients, as it frequently results from pulmonary embolism or pulmonary hypertension, and can complicate sepsis and the acute respiratory distress syndrome. Right ventricular dysfunction can be challenging to manage and is associated with poor outcomes in this wide array of disease. Laboratory biomarkers are rapid, noninvasive, accurate, and widely available and thus are useful in the diagnosis and management of right ventricular dysfunction in the critically ill patient. This article discusses the pathophysiology of right ventricular failure and reviews the applications of commonly used biomarkers in right ventricular dysfunction in critical care.
-
Critical care clinics · Jan 2020
ReviewLubricin as a Therapeutic and Potential Biomarker in Sepsis.
Proteoglycan 4 (or lubricin), a mucin-like glycoprotein, was originally classified as a lubricating substance within diarthrodial joints. More recently, lubricin has been found in other tissues and has been implicated in 2 inflammatory pathways within the cell, via the Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and CD44. Lubricin is an antagonist of TLR2 and TLR4, and appears to enter cells via the CD44 receptor. Because of lubricin's action on these receptors, downstream processes of inflammation are halted, thereby preventing release of cytokines (a hallmark of inflammation and sepsis) from the cell, indicating lubricin's role as a biomarker and possible therapeutic for sepsis.
-
Critical care clinics · Jan 2020
ReviewSoluble Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid Cells-1: Diagnosis or Prognosis?
The diagnosis of sepsis, and especially its differentiation from sterile inflammation, may be challenging. The triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 is an amplifier of the innate immune response. Its soluble form is detectable in various biological fluids and can be used as a surrogate marker of triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 activation. In this article, we review the abundant literature evaluating the usefulness of soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 for the diagnosis and the prognosis evaluation of sepsis or localized infections.