Dual Role of Angiopoietine II in the Complex Management of Critically Ill Patients with Sepsis

I read with great interest the article entitled “The role of Angiopoietine-2 in the diagnosis and prognosis of sepsis”, published by Szederjesi et al in the issue no.1/2015 of JCCM journal [1]. As the authors pointed out, the  prognosis of patients with sepsis is highly dependent on the early establishment of a proper diagnosis and on the early initiation of the adequate therapy. Therefore, identification of new biomarkers characterising this critically ill condition can be considered extremely important for a better understanding of this condition, leading to a more rapid and accurate diagnostic. The study identified angiopoietine-2 (ANG-2) as such a new biomarker characterising septic shock, demonstrating a good correlation between ANG-2 levels, duration of stay in the intensive care unit and the most widely used ICU mortality prediction scores. At the same time, the study showed a good sensitivity and specificity of this biomarker for diagnosis of sepsis and the authors should be congratulated for their results. [More]