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Increased serum concentrations of soluble ST2 predict mortality after burn injury

  • Stefan Hacker ORCID logo EMAIL logo , Benjamin Dieplinger , Gregor Werba , Stefanie Nickl , Georg A. Roth , Claus G. Krenn , Thomas Mueller , Hendrik J. Ankersmit and Thomas Haider
Published/Copyright: June 27, 2018
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Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)
From the journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM) Volume 56 Issue 12

Abstract

Background:

Large burn injuries induce a systemic response in affected patients. Soluble ST2 (sST2) acts as a decoy receptor for interleukin-33 (IL-33) and has immunosuppressive effects. sST2 has been described previously as a prognostic serum marker. Our aim was to evaluate serum concentrations of sST2 and IL-33 after thermal injury and elucidate whether sST2 is associated with mortality in these patients.

Methods:

We included 32 burn patients (total body surface area [TBSA] >10%) admitted to our burn intensive care unit and compared them to eight healthy probands. Serum concentrations of sST2 and IL-33 were measured serially using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique.

Results:

The mean TBSA was 32.5%±19.6%. Six patients (18.8%) died during the hospital stay. Serum analyses showed significantly increased concentrations of sST2 and reduced concentrations of IL-33 in burn patients compared to healthy controls. In our study cohort, higher serum concentrations of sST2 were a strong independent predictor of mortality.

Conclusions:

Burn injuries cause an increment of sST2 serum concentrations with a concomitant reduction of IL-33. Higher concentrations of sST2 are associated with increased in-hospital mortality in burn patients.

Keywords: burn injury; burn trauma; interleukin-33; mortality; sST2; ST2
Corresponding author: Stefan Hacker, MD, FEBOPRAS, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: This study was partly financed by the Medical University of Vienna (research scholarship to TH), the Surgical Research Laboratory of the Medical University of Vienna, and the Ankersmit Laboratory for Cardiac and Thoracic Diagnosis & Regeneration.

  3. Employment or leadership: None declared.

  4. Honorarium: None declared.

  5. Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.

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Received: 2018-01-11
Accepted: 2018-05-24
Published Online: 2018-06-27
Published in Print: 2018-11-27

©2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2018-0042
Keywords for this article
burn injury; burn trauma; interleukin-33; mortality; sST2; ST2

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. Observing an analyzer’s operational life cycle: a useful management tool for clinical laboratories
  4. Reviews
  5. Personalized laboratory medicine: a patient-centered future approach
  6. Circular RNAs: a new class of biomarkers as a rising interest in laboratory medicine
  7. Mini Review
  8. Impact of interactions between drugs and laboratory test results on diagnostic test interpretation – a systematic review
  9. Opinion Paper
  10. Uncertainty in measurement and total error: different roads to the same quality destination?
  11. Guidelines and Recommendations
  12. Joint EFLM-COLABIOCLI Recommendation for venous blood sampling
  13. General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
  14. Evidence for the positive impact of ISO 9001 and ISO 15189 quality systems on laboratory performance – evaluation of immunohaematology external quality assessment results during 19 years in Austria
  15. Effects of high-dose, intravenous lipid emulsion on laboratory tests in humans: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, clinical crossover trial
  16. Commutability of the certified reference materials for the standardization of β-amyloid 1-42 assay in human cerebrospinal fluid: lessons for tau and β-amyloid 1-40 measurements
  17. Failure rate prediction of equipment: can Weibull distribution be applied to automated hematology analyzers?
  18. Evaluation of serum alkaline phosphatase measurement through the 4-year trueness verification program in China
  19. Increased serum concentrations of soluble ST2 predict mortality after burn injury
  20. The clinical significance of borderline results of the Elia CTD Screen assay
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  24. BCL2L12 improves risk stratification and prediction of BFM-chemotherapy response in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia
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  27. Diabetes
  28. Impact of blood cell counts and volumes on glucose concentration in uncentrifuged serum and lithium-heparin blood tubes
  29. Letters to the Editor
  30. Standard process-oriented workflow introduces pre-analytical error when used in large study sample batches
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