Association of Hyperferritinemia with Distinct Host Response Aberrations in Patients with Community-Acquired Pneumonia

Abstract

Background: Strongly elevated ferritin levels have been proposed to reflect systemic hyperinflammation in patients admitted to the intensive care unit. Knowledge of the incidence and pathophysiological implications of hyperferritinemia in patients with acute infection admitted to a non-intensive care setting is limited. Methods: We determined the association between hyperferritinemia, defined by 2 cutoff values (500 and 250 ng/mL), and aberrations in key host response mechanisms among patients with community-Acquired pneumonia (CAP) on admission to a general hospital ward (clinicaltrials.gov NCT02928367; trialregister.nl NTR6163). Results: Plasma ferritin levels were higher in patients with CAP (n=174; median [interquartile ranges], 259.5 [123.1-518.3] ng/mL) than in age-and sex-matched controls without infection (n=50; 102.8 [53.5-185.7] ng/mL); P