Association between ischemia-modified albumin, homocysteine, vitamin B(12) and folic acid in patients with severe sepsis.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study was to investigate serum ischemia-modified albumin (IMA), homocysteine, malondialdehyde (MDA), vitamin B(12) and folic acid levels in patients with severe sepsis, compared to healthy control subjects. Also, we examined associations of these parameters with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) in patients with severe sepsis and healthy control subjects.

METHODS: This study was performed on 71 (40 male, 31 female) patients with severe sepsis aged 18-65 years and 70 (34 male, 36 female) healthy control subjects aged 18-65 years. Samples of patients were obtained at study entry within 24 h of onset of severe sepsis.

RESULTS: Serum IMA, homocysteine and MDA levels of the patients with severe sepsis were significantly higher than those of the healthy control subjects (p<0.01 for IMA and homocysteine, and p<0.001 for MDA). There was no significant difference between serum vitamin B(12) and folic acid levels of the groups. Serum hsCRP levels were positively correlated with IMA (p<0.01) and MDA (p<0.01) in the patients with severe sepsis.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings show that IMA may be useful as a prognostic biomarker because it can indicate the severity of illness in patients with sepsis.