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Clinical significance of enzymatic lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) assay data in patients with sepsis

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Abstract

Lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) has been suggested to serve as a useful prognostic marker for sepsis. However, existing LPC assays are complicated, time-consuming, and of limited application in real clinical situations. Thus, we investigated the serum LPC levels in sepsis patients using an enzymatic assay and analyzed the correlations between the serum LPC concentration and clinical characteristics. We prospectively collected blood samples from suspected sepsis patients, commencing on day 1 of sepsis. We analyzed all samples using an enzymatic assay. Additionally, we analyzed the serum LPC concentrations in a control group of 21 healthy blood donors. A total of 105 patients who fulfilled the sepsis criteria were included. The mean serum LPC concentration was 43.49 ± 33.09 μmol/L in sepsis patients, which was much lower than that of 21 healthy controls (234.68 ± 30.33 μmol/L, p < 0.001). Bacteremic sepsis was associated with a lower serum LPC concentration than non-bacteremic sepsis (34.81 ± 26.85 vs. 49.05 ± 35.63 μmol/L, p < 0.05). No difference in serum LPC concentration was evident between survivors and non-survivors. The serum LPC concentration tended to decrease with the severity of sepsis. The day 1 serum LPC concentration was decreased in patients with sepsis, especially when bacteremia was present. However, the serum LPC level did not correlate with disease severity and did not predict mortality from sepsis.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2011–0006208).

We thank clinical researcher E.M. Cho for reviewing the medical records.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Yangsan, Korea

    W. H. Cho

  2. Department of Emergency Medicine, National Medical Center, Seoul, Korea

    T. Park

  3. Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 388-1 Pungnap-2 Dong, Songpa-Gu, Seoul, 138-736, Korea

    Y. Y. Park, J. W. Huh, C.-M. Lim, Y. Koh & S.-B. Hong

  4. Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Institute of Natural Medicine, Hallym University, Chunchon, South Korea

    D.-K. Song

Authors
  1. W. H. Cho
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  2. T. Park
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  3. Y. Y. Park
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  4. J. W. Huh
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  5. C.-M. Lim
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  6. Y. Koh
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  7. D.-K. Song
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  8. S.-B. Hong
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Correspondence to S.-B. Hong.

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Cho, W.H., Park, T., Park, Y.Y. et al. Clinical significance of enzymatic lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC) assay data in patients with sepsis. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 31, 1805–1810 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-011-1505-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-011-1505-6

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