The perioperative presepsin as an accurate diagnostic marker of postoperative infectious complications after esophagectomy: a prospective cohort study

Background Presepsin is suggested to be an accurate sepsis diagnostic biomarker, playing an important role in distinguishing infection from no-infection status. However, to date, there is no study determining presepsin’s role in diagnosing post-esophagectomy infectious complications. Methods Thirty patients who underwent esophagectomy for esophageal carcinoma were included in this prospective observational study. We investigated preoperative presepsin levels’ changes and evaluated the relationship between infectious complications and presepsin levels. Moreover, we analyzed the classification and regression tree (CART) to determine presepsin’s optimal cutoff values for discriminating infectious complications. Results For 10 patients with infectious complications, median presepsin levels were 168, 337, 303, 271, 314, 978, and 752 pg/ml, pre- and immediately post-surgery, and 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 days post-surgery, respectively. Presepsin levels were significantly higher in the infectious complication group exclusively from preoperation to POD 7 ( p = 0.048). Furthermore, area under the curve’s value of presepsin on POD 5 and 7 was higher than the other three biomarkers included for discriminating infectious complications (i.e., procalcitonin, leukocyte, and C-reacted protein). We set an optimal cutoff value for presepsin calculated by CART. Specifically, on POD 5, the cutoff was 888 pg/ml with a sensitivity of 60% and a specificity of 90%, and on POD 7, the cutoff was 668 pg/ml with a sensitivity of 60% and a specificity of 85%. Conclusions Presepsin levels on POD 5 and 7 after esophagectomy are a valuable indicator of infectious complication’s detection vs. leukocyte, C-reacted protein, and procalcitonin.