Spain: A recent study in the journal Anaesthesia Critical Care & Pain Medicine has revealed an associaiton between high serum caspase-8 concentrations and mortality in spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage (SIH). This implies that serum caspase-8 levels could be utilized as prognostic biomarker mortality.
"Results showed that non-surviving at 30 days had higher serum caspase-8 levels than surviving patients, " Leonardo Lorente, Intensive Care Unit, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Ofra s/n, La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, and colleagues wrote in their study.

Apoptotic changes in brain samples have been seen in haematoma areas of SIH patients undergoing surgical haematoma evacuation. However, there is no description of circulating caspase-8 concentrations in SIH patients. Considering this, Dr. Lorente and the team aimed to explore an association of circulating caspase-8 concentrations and mortality in SIH patients in a observational and prospective study.
For this purpose, patients with severe and supratentorial SIH were included. If Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) was lower than 9, SIH was established to be severe. Intensive Care Units from 5 Spanish hospitals carried out the recruitment of patients. Serum caspase-8 levels was registered at moment of severe SIH diagnosis and 30-day mortality.
Salient findings of the study include:
Surviving (n = 41) in respect to non-surviving SIH patients (n = 38) showed lower serum caspase-8 levels.
The area under the curve to estimate 30-day mortality ability by serum caspase-8 levels was 0.75.
Kaplan-Meier analysis found that patients with serum caspase-8 levels > 17.8 ng/mL showed higher death risk (Hazard ratio = 3.9).
Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed the association of serum caspase-8 concentrations (controlling for intracerebral haemorrhage score, midline shift and early haematoma evacuation) with mortality at 30 days (Odds Ratio = 1.048).
"The main of novel findings that have been revealed in our study is the association of serum caspase-8 concentrations with mortality of SIH patient mortality," wrote the authors.
Reference:
The study titled, "Mortality of spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage patients and high serum caspase-8 concentrations," was published in the journal Anaesthesia Critical Care & Pain Medicine.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accpm.2021.100969