Neutrophil CD64 - A potential biomarker in patients with complicated intra-abdominal infections? - A literature review.

Complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIaIs) respresent a serious cause of morbidity and mortality. Early diagnosis and well-timed treatment can improve patients' outcome, whereas the delay in management often result in rapid progression to circulatory collapse, multiple organ failure, and death. Neutrophil CD64 antigen expression has been studied for several years as infectious and sepsis biomarker and has several characteristics that make it good for clinical employment. It has been suggested to be predictive of positive bacterial cultures and a useful test for management of sepsis and other significant bacterial infections. Our review concluded that the neutrophil CD64 expression could be a promising and meaningful biomarker in patients with cIaIs. It shows good potential for evaluating the severity of the disease and could give information about the outcome. However, more large studies should be performed before using it in clinical practice.