Cardiometabolic biomarkers are predictors of readmission and death in patients hospitalized for acute dyspnea

Dyspnea (“shorness of breath”) is commonly displayed by patients with a wide range of respiratory and CVD-related complaints, and acute dyspnea is associated with high mortaloty and hospital readmission rates. Early risk assessment is critical, but very few relaible predictive tools are available. In this study, 65 acute dyspnea patients were followed for 6 months, with readmission or death taken as he combined clinical endpoint. Patients were scored for dyspnea severity (DSS) and had their serum samples analyzed using the CVD I panel. FAS, CCL3, tPA and PRL were all indpendently found to be significantly associated with death/readmission, after adjusting for known physical co-variates. These were taken together as a “biomarker risk score” (BRS) which was found to be predictive for 6-month death/readmission and to add more prognostic information to the DSS (dyspnea severity classification). Moreoever, the highest predictive value shown by the BRS was for mild-to-moderate dyspnea patients, who are often the most difficult to risk-assess. The four proteins identified also gave pathophysiological insights hinting that inflammatory processes may be key in the clinical outcome. They conclude that the BRS identified here may provide a valuable tool for risk assessment and for guiding clincal decisions in these patients.