Diagnostic and Prognostic Value of Deregulated Circulating Long Non-coding RNA TUG1 in Elderly Patients with Severe Pneumonia

To investigate the expression pattern of long non-coding RNA TUG1 in elderly patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia (sCAP) and evaluate its diagnostic and prognostic value for sCAP. Serum TUG1 levels were detected in 130 sCAP patients and 122 healthy volunteers via qRT-PCR method. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and k-M plot were drawn for the diagnostic and prognostic value evaluation. A diminished trend of TUG1 was detected in the serum of sCAP cases, and negatively correlated with the concentration of TNF-alpha, CRP, suPAR and sTREM-1. Among the 130 cases, 30 cases died from sCAP within 30 days after admission. Serum TUG1 had the diagnostic value for 30-day mortality prediction with the AUC of 0.823. In the non-survival group, more cases had old age, high CURB score and PSI score. K-M plot demonstrated that cases with low TUG1 levels showed poor survival than those carrying high TUG1 levels. Serum TUG1 was an independent risk factor for death in elderly patients with sCAP within 30 days after admission. Serum TUG1 was at low expression in sCAP patients, and it had the predictive value for the clinical prognosis of elderly sCAP patients.