Diagnostic value of circulating IL-6 in adult sepsis: a meta-analysis.

Introduction: In recent years, numerous studies have been published on the diagnostic performance of circulating IL-6 levels in adult sepsis, but the conclusions are not consistent. This meta-analysis aims to systematically evaluate the accuracy of circulating IL-6 in the diagnosis of adult sepsis.

Evidence Acquisition: Literature on the diagnostic value of circulating IL-6 in adult sepsis published on CNKI, Wanfang Data, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were searched up to December 2023. QUADAS-2 scale was used to evaluate the quality of the included literature. Stata 15.0 statistical software was used for data processing. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), positive likelihood ratio (PLR), and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) were calculated. The summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) was drawn, with the area under the curve (AUC) calculated.

Evidence Synthesis: A total of 31 articles were included in this meta-analysis. The results of the meta-analysis showed that the combined sensitivity, specificity, DOR, PLR, and NLR of circulating IL-6 for the diagnosis of adult sepsis were 0.74 (95%CI: 0.69-0.78), 0.73 (95%CI: 0.68-0.78), 7.71 (95%CI: 5.66-10.52), 2.77 (95%CI: 2.29-3.35), 0.36 (95%CI: 0.30-0.43), respectively. The AUC was 0.80 (95%CI: 0.76-0.83).

Conclusions: Circulating IL-6 has a good diagnostic value in adult sepsis, with moderate sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, IL-6 can provide a basis for the diagnosis of adult sepsis.