Efficacy of Neutrophil Lymphocyte Stress Factor in Diagnosis of Sepsis and Prediction of Mortality in Septic Patients Admitted to the ICU

Abstract

Abstract Background Sepsis is a major public health concern. It is among the most common reasons for admission to intensive care units (ICUs) throughout the world. Severe sepsis and septic shock are associated with 30-60% mortality rate which is very high compared to other common diseases, such as myocardial infarction or breast cancer. Sepsis is now defined as a “life-threatening organ dysfunction due to a dysregulated host response to infection”. Aim of the Work to evaluate the efficacy of neutrophil lymphocyte stress factor (NLSF) in the diagnosis of sepsis and prediction of mortality in septic patients admitted to the ICU. Patients and Methods We conducted this prospective observational study on 60 patients after informed consents were taken from patients or their next of kin. We enrolled adult patients admitted to the ICU with the diagnosis of septic shock. We excluded patients younger than 18 years, pregnant females, patients with terminal malignancy, patients with liver cirrhosis child-pugh C, patients with shock of mixed origin and patients with aplasia, immunosuppressive disease or receiving immunosuppressive therapy. Then we classified patients into 2 main groups according to presence of sepsis into; Septic group (30 patients), and Non-Septic group (30 patients). Results from our study concluded that NLSF can be used in diagnosis of sepsis, although it’s the least accurate diagnostic marker among PCT, CRP and NLSF, it provides the cheapest tool for diagnosis of sepsis. It was also found that NLSF can be used in prediction of mortality in septic patient during the period of our study and that it’s the most accurate prognostic marker of mortality among PCT, CRP and NLSF. Conclusion NLSF in combination with other parameters can be used as a cheap easy tool for the early detection of sepsis in intensive care units. NLSF can be used as a prognostic marker in sepsis for prediction of mortality in ICU. Further studies are required to clarify these results on a larger group of patients and for longer periods of time.