Blood heparin-binding protein and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio as indicators of the severity and prognosis of community-acquired pneumonia.

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is particularly prevalent and has high mortality in severely ill patients, but the role of current biomarkers is limited. This study aimed to evaluate the importance of blood heparin-binding protein (HBP) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) in assessing the severity and prognosis of CAP in adults.

Methods: The clinical information of 206 CAP patients was retrospectively analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were created, and the accuracy of the diagnosis of severe pneumonia was evaluated by the area under the curve (AUC). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to examine independent factors affecting the 30-day prognosis. The Kruskal-Wallis test was utilized to contrast the variations among etiology.

Results: Patients with severe pneumonia showed greater HBP and NLR compared to those with common pneumonia. The AUC of HBP was 0.723 (95% CI: 0.655-0.790) for the diagnosis of severe pneumonia, while NLR and HBP exhibited superior sensitivity (80.00%) and specificity (76.19%), respectively. Their combination boosted the diagnostic specificity (84.13%) while increasing the diagnostic sensitivity (86.25%) when combined with white blood cell (WBC) count. The 30-day mortality in CAP patients was independently predicted by HBP and NLR. However, there were no appreciable differences in HBP amongst patients with various etiologies.

Conclusion: HBP and NLR were also independent predictors of 30-day death in CAP patients and grew with increasing severity in these patients. Their combination opened up new possibilities. Furthermore, there is no connection between HBP and the etiology of CAP.