%0 Journal Article
%T MALAT1 predicts the prognosis of severe community-acquired pneumonia in pediatric patients.
%A Yang M
%A Xuan A
%A Liu Q
%A Zhu G
%J BMC Pulm Med
%V 24
%N 1
%D 2024 Jul 25
%M 39061025
%F 3.32
%R 10.1186/s12890-024-03157-9
%X <B>BACKGROUND: </B>To evaluate the role of metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) in the prognosis of severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>According to the median MALAT1 value of 3.2 at baseline, 93 pediatric patients with severe CAP were divided into low (n = 46, median MALAT1 level = 1.9) or high (n = 47, median MALAT1 level = 4.5) MALAT1 groups. Another 93 age-, gender-, and body mass index (BMI)-matched healthy individuals were included in the control group using the propensity-score matching (PSM) method. A multivariate Cox proportional hazards model was used to explore the association of MALAT1 level with the 28-day mortality after controlling for potential confounding factors.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>The MALAT1 expressions were significantly higher in the patients with severe CAP compared with those in the healthy controls (3.2 vs. 0.9, P < 0.01). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.927 when the cut-off value of MALAT1 was 1.5. Moreover, the MALAT1 expressions were substantially lower in survivals than non-survivals (3.8 vs. 2.6, P < 0.01), and the multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated a positive association between MALAT1 levels and mortality risk (HR = 3.32; 95% CI: 1.05-10.47; P = 0.04).<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>MALAT1 might be a promising marker for predicting the prognosis of severe CAP in pediatric patients.