Fulfillment status of hypertriglyceridemia and hypofibrinogenemia in children with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and risks of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and early mortality

Development and validation of an early mortality risk model for pediatric hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis: a comparison with HScore, PELOD-2, P-MODS, and pSOFA

There has been no severity evaluation model for pediatric patients with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) that uses readily available parameters. This study aimed to develop a novel model for predicting the early mortality risk in pediatric patients with HLH using easily obtained parameters whatever etiologic subtype. Patients from one center were divided into training and validation sets for model derivation. The developed model was validated using an independent validation cohort from the second center. The prediction model with nomogram was developed based on logistic regression. The model performance underwent internal and external evaluation and validation using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), calibration curve with 1000 bootstrap resampling, and decision curve analysis (DCA). Model performance was compared with the most prevalent severity evaluation scores, including the PELOD-2, P-MODS, and pSOFA scores. The prediction model included nine variables: glutamic-pyruvic transaminase, albumin, globulin, myohemoglobin, creatine kinase, serum potassium, procalcitonin, serum ferritin, and interval between onset and diagnosis. The AUC of the model for predicting the 28-day mortality was 0.933 and 0.932 in the training and validation sets, respectively. The AUC values of the HScore, PELOD-2, P-MODS and pSOFA were 0.815, 0.745, 0.659 and 0.788, respectively. The DCA of the 28-day mortality prediction exhibited a greater net benefit than the HScore, PELOD-2, P-MODS and pSOFA. Subgroup analyses demonstrated good model performance across HLH subtypes. The novel mortality prediction model in this study can contribute to the rapid assessment of early mortality risk after diagnosis with readily available parameters.

Prognostic value of lipid profile in adult hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis

Background

Adult secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH) is a rare clinical syndrome with a high mortality rate. Currently, there are no feasible prognostic factors to clinically predict untreated sHLH patients' prognosis. Our objective was to characterize the lipid profile of adult sHLH patients and to determine the relationship with overall survival.

Methods

We retrospectively analyzed 247 patients with newly diagnosed sHLH from January 2017 to January 2022 according to the HLH-2004 criteria. Multivariate Cox regression analyses and restricted cubic splines were conducted to evaluate the prognostic value of the lipid profile.

Results

The median age of all patients was 52 years, and the commonest cause of sHLH in our cohort was malignancy. During a median follow-up of 88 (interquartile ranges, 22-490) days, 154 deaths occurred. The univariate analysis confirmed total cholesterol (TC) ≤ 3 mmol/L, triglycerides (TG) > 3.08 mmol/L, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c) ≤ 0.52 mmol/L, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c) ≤ 2.17 mmol/L were associated with an inferior survival. In a multivariate model, HDL-c, hemoglobin, platelet, fibrinogen, and soluble interleukin-2 receptor were considered as independent factors. Additionally, the restricted cubic spline analyses indicated an inverse linear association between HDL-c and the risk of mortality in sHLH.

Conclusion

Lipid profiles, which were low-cost and readily available promising biomarkers, were strongly associated with the overall survival in adult sHLH patients.

Risk factors of early death in pediatric hemophagocytic lymphohistocytosis: Retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND

Hemophagocytic lymphocytosis (HLH) is a rare life-threatening hyperinflammatory syndrome in which early mortality remains high in patients with HLH.

METHODS

We retrospectively collected the medical records of all pediatric patients diagnosed with HLH at the West China Second Hospital of Sichuan University between January 2014 and December 2020. Collect demographic, laboratory, clinical, genetic profiles, treatment information and perform statistical analysis from records. Risk factors for death 30 days after admission were evaluated using a multivariable logistic regression model.

RESULTS

A total of 110 pediatric HLH patients were enrolled. The median age of patients was 44 months (IQR 23-100.5) and 62 (56.4%) in males. The 30-day mortality rate for admission to this cohort was 34 (30.9%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that heart failure (OR = 13.389, 95% CI, 1.671-107.256, p = 0.015) and hypoproteinemia (OR = 4.841, 95% CI, 1.282-18.288, p = 0.020) were associated with increased early mortality in children with HLH.

CONCLUSIONS

These identified risk factors may help clinicians stratify patients with HLH and develop targeted treatment strategies. More research is needed to explore the best treatment strategies for patients with HLH to reduce early mortality in patients with HLH.