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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Med.
Sec. Intensive Care Medicine and Anesthesiology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1486361

Growth Differentiation Factor-15 as a Biomarker for Intensive Care Unit-Acquired Weakness: A Meta-Analysis

Provisionally accepted
Binghan Wang Binghan Wang 1,2,3Mengying Qi Mengying Qi 1,2,3*Zheng Yang Zheng Yang 1,2,3*Guilan He Guilan He 1,2,3*Siya Meng Siya Meng 1,2,3*
  • 1 Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China
  • 2 Shenzhen Nanshan People’s Hospital, Shenzhen, China
  • 3 Shenzhen Sixth People's Hospital, Shenzhen, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) may be a potential biomarker for intensive care unit-acquired weakness (ICU-AW). In this study, we aimed to quantitative analysis the levels of GDF-15 in patients with ICU-AW and in non-ICU-AW, and then to determine its potential diagnostic utility. Methods: Two researchers separately conducted a systematic search of the relevant studies up to May 2023 in various literature databases (PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, Embase, and CINAHL). Studies were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and quality evaluation of the included studies was conducted by using QUADAS-2 provided by Review Manager 5.3. The software packages Meta Disc (C1.4) and Stata17.0 were used for the meta-analysis. The data were combined with fixed-effects model, and the summary receiver operating characteristic curve was drawn to evaluate the overall diagnostic accuracy of GDF-15. Results: We identified 6 eligible studies comprising 401 patients with ICU-AW. The sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) , and area under the curve (AUC) for the discriminative performance of GDF-15 as a diagnostic biomarker were 0.82 (95% confidence interval (CI):0.78-0.86), 0.83 (95% CI: 0.61-0.88), 21.39 (95% CI: 13.36-34.24), and 0.88 (95% CI: 0.85-0.91), respectively. Conclusion: GDF-15 is a candidate biomarker in diagnosing of ICU-AW from non-ICU-AW.

    Keywords: Growth differentiation factor-15, intensive care unit-acquired weakness, diagnostic utility, Meta-analysis, review

    Received: 26 Aug 2024; Accepted: 13 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Qi, Yang, He and Meng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Mengying Qi, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China
    Zheng Yang, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China
    Guilan He, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China
    Siya Meng, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.