Can biomarkers help us to better diagnose and manage sepsis?

The recognition over 25 years ago that the host response plays an exquisite role in sepsis, led to the today still-standard sepsis definition. Unfortunately, the inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria turned out to be less useful than anticipated, lacking sensitivity, specificity and ease of clinical application. Had novel host-response biomarkers been available by that time, it arguably would have been preferable to white blood cell count as an unspecific and not-sensitive laboratory-based SIRS criterion. Several novel markers have been put forward as sepsis markers with better diagnostic and/or prognostic potential in sepsis including inflammatory markers such as procalcitonin (PCT), presepsin, proadrenomedullin (ProADM), endothelial dysfunction markers such as P-selectin, E-selectin, intercellular cell adhesion molecule [ICAM]-1 and vascular cell adhesion molecule [VCAM]-1 and genetic markers among others. The limitations to using clinical parameters and conventional diagnostic markers for patients with clinical suspicion of sepsis may directly lead to both, under treatment of patients with severe disease needing urgent antibiotic and fluid therapy, and unnecessary and prolonged exposure to antimicrobial agents adversely affecting patient outcomes and increasing antibiotic resistance. The aim of this review is to summarize the current evidence for emerging diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic-response sepsis biomarkers in different infections and clinical settings, and discuss the reliability, potential benefit and limitations of these marker when used in clinical routine for sepsis management.