Usefulness of midregional proadrenomedullin to predict poor outcome in patients with community acquired pneumonia.

BACKGROUND: midregional proadrenomedullin (MR-proADM) is a prognostic biomarker in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). We sought to confirm whether MR-proADM added to Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI) improves the potential prognostic value of PSI alone, and tested to what extent this combination could be useful in predicting poor outcome of patients with CAP in an Emergency Department (ED). METHODS: Consecutive patients diagnosed with CAP were enrolled in this prospective, single-centre, observational study. We analyzed the ability of MR-proADM added to PSI to predict poor outcome using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, logistic regression and risk reclassification and comparing it with the ability of PSI alone. The primary outcome was "poor outcome", defined as the incidence of an adverse event (ICU admission, hospital readmission, or mortality at 30 days after CAP diagnosis). RESULTS: 226 patients were included; 33 patients (14.6%) reached primary outcome. To predict primary outcome the highest area under curve (AUC) was found for PSI (0.74 [0.64-0.85]), which was not significantly higher than for MR-proADM (AUC 0.72 [0.63-0.81, p > 0.05]). The combination of PSI and MR-proADM failed to improve the predictive potential of PSI alone (AUC 0.75 [0.65-0.85, p=0.56]). Ten patients were appropriately reclassified when the combined PSI and MR-proADM model was used as compared with the model of PSI alone. Net reclassification improvement (NRI) index was statistically significant (7.69%, p = 0.03) with an improvement percentage of 3.03% (p = 0.32) for adverse event, and 4.66% (P = 0.02) for no adverse event. CONCLUSION: MR-proADM in combination with PSI may be helpful in individual risk stratification for short-term poor outcome of CAP patients, allowing a better reclassification of patients compared with PSI alone.

Comorbidity and intervention in octogenarians with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis.

BACKGROUND: The benefit from intervention in elderly patients with symptomatic severe aortic stenosis (AS) and high comorbidity is unknown. Our aims were to establish the correlation between the Charlson comorbidity index and the prognosis of octogenarians with symptomatic sever AS and to identify patients who might not benefit from intervention. METHODS: We used the data from PEGASO (Pronóstico de la Estenosis Grave Aórtica Sintomática del Octogenario--Prognosis of symptomatic severe aortic stenosis in octogenarians), a prospective registry that included consecutively 928 patients aged ≥ 80 years with severe symptomatic AS. RESULTS: The mean Charlson comorbidity index was 3.0 ± 1.7, a total of 151 patients (16.3%) presented high comorbidity (index ≥ 5). Median survival was lower for patients with high comorbidity than for those without (16.7 ± 1.2 vs. 26.5 ± 0.6 months, p < 0.001). In patients without high comorbidity planned interventional management was clearly associated with prognosis (log rank p < 0.001), which was not the case in patients with high comorbidity (log rank p > 0.10). In multivariate analysis, the only variables that were independently associated with prognosis were planned medical management and Charlson index. Patients with high comorbidity presented non-cardiac death more frequently than those who had not (28.6% vs. 19.5%, p = 0.008). CONCLUSIONS: One sixth of octogenarians with symptomatic severe AS have very high comorbidity (Charlson index ≥ 5). These patients have a poor prognosis in the short term and do not seem to benefit from interventional treatment.