Beckman Coulter has announced the results of a study which found that monocyte distribution width, together with white blood cell count with differential, can detect the risk of sepsis and severe infection upon patient presentation in A&E.
The study analysed 1517 adult patients in the accident and emergency departments of France's largest hospital, the Pitié-Salpêtrière APHP-Sorbonne Université hospital in Paris, and the Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol in Badalona, in Spain, the results of which were recently published in the journal Critical Care.
System Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) and Quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) risk scores are routinely used to assess the risk of sepsis based on the standard physiological parameters, including body temperature, respiration rate, heart rate, blood pressure, and altered mental status, among others. Both scores were initially derived for use in the critical care environment and may lack sensitivity and specificity, falsely leading to over or under suspicion of sepsis in emergency department patients.
The study found that abnormal monocyte distribution width MDW values, when considered along with the standard physiologic parameters at the time of patient presentation in the emergency department, increased the odds of Sepsis-2 by a factor of 5.5 and Sepsis-3 by 7.6 Additionally, MDW was found to increase incrementally with progression from milder forms of infection to sepsis and is highest in those with septic shock. These results are in accordance with two recent North American studies, confirming the robustness and reproducibility of MDW performance in different patient populations.
Testing and screening for the novel MDW haematologic biomarker is available on the Beckman Coulter DxH 900 and DxH 690T haematology analysers as a part of a CBC-DIFF. For further information about MDW and Beckman Coulter’s robust portfolio of diagnosis and management solutions, visit the company’s website.