Diagnostic efficiency of adropin as a preliminary test to exclude acute pulmonary embolism: a prospective study

Background: This study aims to investigate the efficiency of adropin as a biomarker to exclude the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism. Methods: Patients admitted to the emergency department of a tertiary health center (a university hospital) between August 2019 and August 2020 and diagnosed with pulmonary embolism were included in this prospective cohort study. The amount of serum adropin was determined in patients with pulmonary embolism (who were diagnosed using computerized tomography pulmonary angiography) and compared with healthy volunteers. Results: There were 57 participants in the study (28 controls and 29 PE patients). The mean value of the adropin level in the pulmonary embolism group was 187.33 ± 62.40 pg/ml which is significantly lower than the control group (524.06 ± 421.68 pg/ml) (p < 0.001). When the optimal adropin cut-off value was 213.78 pg/ml, the likelihood ratio of the adropin test was 3.4, and the sensitivity of the adropin test at this value was 82% with specificity of 75% (95% CI; AUC: 0.821). Conclusion: The adropin test can be used to exclude the diagnosis of acute pulmonary embolism in the emergency department. However, more research is required to verify and support the generalizability of our study results.