Effect of Serum Ferritin on the Prognosis of Patients with Sepsis: Data from the MIMIC-IV Database

BACKGROUND: The present study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of serum ferritin in critically ill patients with sepsis by using the MIMIC-IV database. METHODS: Data were extracted from the MIMIC-IV database. Adult patients who met the sepsis-3 criteria and had the test of ferritin were included. Patients were divided into subgroups according to the initial serum ferritin. The association between initial serum ferritin and in-hospital mortality was performed by using Lowessregression, logistic regression, and ROC analysis. Subgroup analysis was used to search for the interacting factors and verify the robustness of the results. RESULTS: Analysis of the 2,451 patients revealed a positive linear relationship between serum ferritin and in-hospital mortality. Patients with high-ferritin had a higher risk of in-hospital mortality, but no significant association was found in the low-ferritin subgroup compared with those whose ferritin was in the normal reference range. Serum ferritin had moderate predictive power for in-hospital mortality (AUC = 0.651), with an optimal cut-off value of 591.5 ng/ml. Ferritin ≥591.5 ng/ml acted as an independent prognostic predictor of in-hospital mortality, which increased the risk of in-hospital mortality by 119%. Our findings were still robust in subgroup analysis, and acute kidney injury and anemia were considered interactive factors. CONCLUSION: High-level serum ferritin was an independent prognostic marker for the prediction of mortality in patients with sepsis. Further high-quality research is needed to confirm the relationship between ferritin and the prognosis of septic patients.