Pro-BNP versus MEDS Score in Determining the Prognosis of Sepsis Patients; a Diagnostic Accuracy Study

Introduction: Pro-brain natriuretic peptide (Pro-BNP) can act as an independent predictor of mortality in septic patients. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of pro-BNP and Mortality in Emergency Department Sepsis (MEDS) score in this regard. Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted on > 14 years old sepsis patients of an emergency department (ED), during 2 years. The level of Pro-BNP and MEDS score were measured for all eligible patients and considering one-month mortality as reference, screening performance characteristics of the two tests were compared using SPSS 21 and STATS 11. Results: 121 patients with the mean age of 75.87±11.82 years were studied (55.4% male). 85 (70.25%) patients had moderate to high probability of mortality according to MEDS score. The mean Pro-BNP levels of survivor and non-survivor patients were 489.69 ± 327.47 and 3954.98 ± 2717.85 pg/ml, respectively (p < 0.0001). Sensitivity and specificity of Pro-BNP (in 1000 pg/ml cut off) and MEDS score (in level 3) in prediction of 1-month mortality were 93.6 (83.7-97.9), 94.8 (84.7-98.6), 65.0 (51.9-76.3), and 98.2 (89.5-99.9), respectively. Area under the ROC curve of the two tests were 97.36 (95% CI: 92.92-94.48) and 92.31 (95% CI: 86.35-96.53), respectively (p = 0.0543). Conclusion: Pro-BNP and MEDS score both have excellent diagnostic accuracy in predicting 1-month mortality of sepsis patients. However, considering the higher sensitivity as well as availability and ease of calculation, it seems that Pro-BNP can be considered an appropriate tool for screening patients with high risk of mortality following sepsis in ED