Procalcitonin and interleukin-6 in predicting prognosis of sepsis patients with cancer

Objective To evaluate the ability of infection indicators to predict the prognosis of sepsis patients with tumor. Methods A total of 317 patients admitted to ICU from January 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021 were enrolled. Among them, 163 patients were infected during peri-operative period, and 98 patients were ultimately diagnosed with sepsis. The infection indicators were analyzed for prediction of sepsis prognosis. Results Comparison of infection indicators between sepsis and non-sepsis patients showed that procalcitonin (PCT) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) showed significant changes in sepsis patients (p < 0.05), and PCT combined with IL-6 significantly improved the specificity of early screening for sepsis with the highest positivity predictive value for sepsis. A combination of PCT > 5.965 ng/mL and IL-6 > 2808 pg/mL was associated with poor prognosis. Peak value combinations of PCT and IL-6 for prediction specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 0.935, 0.692, and 0.682, respectively. Conclusion Abnormal increase of PCT and IL-6 has a good early warning effect on sepsis in cancer patients, and the combination of PCT and IL-6 can improve predictive specificity and increase positive predictive ability of sepsis diagnosis. PCT combined with IL-6 shows the value in predicting the prognosis of sepsis patients with cancer.