The Stress Hormone Copeptin as a Prognostic Biomarker in Acute Illness

Abstract

Background: Copeptin has been evaluated as biomarker for several illnesses such as cerebrovascular stroke, heart failure, showing a promising role mainly as a prognostic biomarker. Copeptin levels seem to be strongly related to short, mid, and long-term mortality in patients admitted to hospital showing that copeptin could be a valuable prognostic tool in the most frequent disease entities. Objective: The aim of the current study was to study the level of copeptin as a prognostic biomarker in acute illness. Patients and Methods: This study included a total of 64 patients with acute deterioration of their chronic illness as chronic liver diseases (most of them were child C on Child-Pugh score), COPD (admitted with infective exacerbation), cerebrovascular stroke and Decompensate heart failure and 20 controls, attending at emergency room, Ain Shames University Hospital. Results: Serum copeptin levels have positive correlation with longer duration of hospitalization, the higher the copeptin level the more length of hospital stay (r= 0.264* p= 0.035). There was highly statistically significant difference between copeptin level and survival rate, copeptin concentrations were significantly higher in non- survivors than in survivors (p=0.000).The mean of copeptin level among patient who died was 500 ) pmol/L with range of 70 to 750 pmol/L, while the mean of copeptin level among survivors was 60 pmol/L with range of 20-600 pmol/L. Conclusion: It could be concluded that copeptin has a role in prognosis of mortality and morbidity of hospitalized patients and high copeptin level significantly associated with a longer hospital stay and a poor outcome of hospital admission.