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ABSTRACT: To compare the accuracy of biomarkers for identifying acute chest syndrome (ACS) in patients with sickle cell disease presenting to a pediatric emergency department (ED).
We conducted a 13-month-long (2002-2003) cohort study with nested case-control in patients with sickle cell disease presenting to the pediatric ED with vaso-occlusive crises or fever in which we compared levels of secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2), endothelin-1, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and peripheral white blood cell count (WBC) in cases that were complicated by ACS and in control subjects with uncomplicated illnesses. For diagnosis, a test was considered to be accurate when the area under its receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) was >0.70. Laboratory tests with AUC values > or =0.70 were entered into a binary recursive partitioning model for diagnosis.
For the period of study, samples from 72 visits were obtained from 51 patients who presented with vaso-occlusive crises (range: 1-4 visits per patient; 15 were enrolled more than once). ACS complicated 19 of 72 visits (26%, 95% confidence interval: 17%-38%). At an AUC value of 0.79, only the sPLA2 test was accurate for diagnosing ACS. AUC values for peripheral WBC, endothelin-1, and IL-6 were 0.68, 0.51, and 0.52, respectively. Binary recursive partitioning retained only sPLA2 at a cutoff of 13.7 ng/mL to be accurate for diagnosis. This cutoff had a sensitivity of 74% (14 of 19), a specificity of 87% (46 of 53), a positive likelihood ratio of 5.6, and a negative likelihood ratio of 0.18.
Secretory phospholipase A2 but not endothelin-1, IL-6, or WBC is an accurate test for identifying present or incipient ACS in young patients who present to the ED with sickle cell pain crises.
PEDIATRICS 09/2005; 116(3):e420-5. · 4.47 Impact Factor
