Association of dynamics of anellovirus loads with hospital-acquired pneumonia in brain-injured patients during the intensive care unit stay.

BACKGROUND

Critical illness induces immune disorders associated with an increased risk of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Torque Teno Virus (TTV), from the Anelloviridae family, are proposed as a biomarker to measure the level of immunosuppression. Our objective was to describe the kinetics of TTV DNA loads and their association with critical-illness related complications.

METHODS

We performed a longitudinal study in 115 brain-injured patients from a prospective cohort, collected endotracheal and blood samples at three time points (T1, T2, T3) during the two weeks post-admission in intensive care unit, and measured viral DNA loads using the TTV R-gene® kit (Biomerieux) and a pan-Anelloviridae in house qRT-PCR.

RESULTS

TTV DNA was detected in the blood of 69, 71, and 64% of brain-injured patients at T1, T2 and T3 respectively. Time-associated variations of TTV and Anellovirus (AV) DNA loads were observed. Using a linear mixed-effects model, we found that HAP and ARDS were associated with lower blood AV DNA loads.

CONCLUSION

Our results show that HAP or ARDS in critically ill patients are associated to changes in AV DNA loads, and should be evaluated further as a biomarker of immune disorders leading to these complications.

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [e-mail].