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Updated: Apr 29, 2026
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Published on: December 9, 2022
Performance of interleukin-27 as a sepsis diagnostic biomarker in critically ill adults
Hector R Wong1, Kathleen D Liu2, Kirsten N Kangelaris3
1Division of Critical Care Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Research Foundation, Cincinnati, OH, USA; Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
Purpose:
We recently identified interleukin-27 (IL-27) as a sepsis diagnostic biomarker in children. Here we assess IL-27 as a sepsis diagnostic biomarker in critically ill adults with systemic inflammatory response syndrome and sepsis.
Methods:
IL-27 and procalcitonin (PCT) were measured from plasma samples in three groups: no sepsis (n = 78), pulmonary source of sepsis (n = 66), and non-pulmonary source of sepsis (n = 43). Receiver operating characteristic curves and classification and regression tree methodology were used to evaluate biomarker performance.
Results:
IL-27 did not discriminate effectively between sepsis and sterile systemic inflammatory response syndrome in unselected patients. The highest area under the curve (AUC) was 0.70 (95% C.I. 0.60 - 0.80) for IL-27 in subjects with a non-pulmonary source of sepsis. A decision tree incorporating IL-27, PCT, and age had an AUC of 0.79 (0.71-0.87) in subjects with a non-pulmonary source of sepsis. Compared to children with sepsis, adults with sepsis express less IL-27.
Conclusions:
IL-27 performed overall poorly in this cohort as a sepsis diagnostic biomarker. Combining IL-27, PCT, and age reasonably estimated the risk of sepsis in subjects with a non-pulmonary source of sepsis. IL-27 may be a more reliable sepsis diagnostic biomarker in children than in adults.
