Diagnostic significance of heart-type fatty acid-binding protein as a potential biomarker to predict the mortality rate of patients with sepsis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Background

Some studies have found that heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) is related to the prognosis of patients with sepsis. This study aimed to explore whether H-FABP could predict the 28-day mortality in patients with sepsis.

Methods

Seven databases were searched, and the studies were screened based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria to assess the quality. The pooled sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE) positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and the area under the curve (AUC) of the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve were calculated along with the 95% confidence interval (CI) values. Deeks’ funnel plot was used to ascertain any publication bias. Meta-regression analysis was performed to explore the possible sources of heterogeneity.

Results

Seven studies were assessed that included 822 patients with sepsis. The pooled SEN was 0.76 (95% CI, 0.71–0.81), SPE was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.61–0.70), PLR was 2.21 (95% CI, 1.73–2.83), NLR was 0.36 (95% CI, 0.29–0.54), DOR was 6.23 (95% CI, 4.27–9.11) and the pooled AUC was 0.8137. There was no publication bias. Race, literature language, sampling time, threshold division and threshold effect were not the causes for the large heterogeneity.

Conclusions

This meta-analysis suggests that H-FABP has high accuracy in predicting the 28-day mortality rate of patients with sepsis.

KEYWORDS:

• Heart-type fatty acid-binding protein
• biomarker
• sepsis
• prognosis
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Bullet Edits Limited for linguistic editing and proofreading of the manuscript.

Declarations of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Ethical approval

All analyses performed in the current study are in line with established medical ethics guidelines.

Informed consent

The current study is based on published studies. Thus, informed consent was not needed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Data availability statement

All data generated or analysed in this study are included in this manuscript.