Prospective Study Evaluating the Prevalence of Intestinal Dysfunction

Several markers of intestinal response have been studied and are still in the research field due to a lack of conclusive work on their impact. Clinically, both in post-weaning children and in adults, citrullinemia (citrulline deficiency) is well established as a sensitive and specific indicator of functional absorptive enterocyte mass. Fecal calprotectin is already used as a marker of neutrophil-mediated inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease. A recent controlled observational study of 165 patients investigated serum calprotectin as a prognostic marker in sepsis patients hospitalized in critical care. The authors found a significant increase in serum calprotectin concentration in sepsis patients compared to control patients. Furthermore, it would appear that a high level of calprotectin upon admission to intensive care is a significant risk factor for long-term mortality. Finally, in patients with sepsis, serum zonulin levels are elevated, which promotes bacterial translocation via the epithelium and thus bacteremia. The risk of infection in immunocompromised patients is a therapeutic challenge due to its adverse prognostic impact. Sepsis-related mortality is higher (relative risk = 1.62) in immunocompromised patients. One of the mechanisms of sepsis in these patients is gastrointestinal bacterial translocation due to the gastrointestinal cytotoxicity of chemotherapy, microbiota alterations via antibiotic therapy, and low perfusion rates. This study aims to assess the prevalence of intestinal inflammation in a population of patients with malignant hematological diseases undergoing treatment and admitted to intensive care for sepsis-septic shock. These patients are exposed to cytotoxic chemotherapies that attack the intestinal mucosa, making it more permeable and thus being the source of digestive translocations of bacteria from the intestinal microbiota into the bloodstream. In the absence of validated threshold values in the literature to define intestinal inflammation based on fecal calprotectin levels, it is necessary to have a control population also affected by sepsis but not carrying malignant hematological disease.