Background
Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (TREM-1) has emerged as an important inflammatory marker of immune response associated with severity and mortality outcomes in infection diseases, including viral pneumonias.
Aim
(1) To evaluate the expression of TREM-1 in patients with COVID-19 and other viral pneumonias compared to healthy individuals; and (2) to analyze the levels of these biomarkers according to disease severity.
Materials and methods
This review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline. Searches were performed in PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Google Scholar. Studies were considered eligible if they were observational studies that provided data on the levels of TREM-1 in humans with viral pneumonia compared to healthy controls. The results of the meta-analysis were expressed as standardized mean difference (SMD) and an effect size of 0.8 was considered a large effect. A subgroup analysis was performed according to the disease severity.
Results
Seven studies were included in this systematic review. Four studies included patients with COVID-19 and three analyzed patients with different viruses. The meta-analysis was performed only with patients with COVID-19, which showed increased levels of soluble form of TREM-1 (sTREM-1) among patients with COVID-19 compared to healthy controls (SMD 1.53; 95% CI 0.53–2.52;
p
< 0.01). No differences were found between patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 and healthy controls, but higher levels of sTREM-1 were shown among patients with severe COVID-19 (SMD 1.83; 95% CI 0.77–2.88;
p
< 0.01). All three studies including patients with other viral pneumonias showed that TREM-1 levels were significantly elevated in infected patients compared with controls.
Conclusion
These findings may provide evidence on the pro-inflammatory role of TREM-1 in these infections, contributing to the inflammatory profile and disease progression.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10787-022-00972-6.
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