The Discovery of Novel Serum Biomarker “Proteoglycan 4” for Acute Lung Injury Following Cardiac Surgery in Infants and Children

Lung injury is a common complication in children following cardiac surgery. Mechanical ventilation is often required to support patients for hours to days in the intensive care unit. The severity of lung injury can vary by patient. Being able to predict which patient are at a higher risk of requiring respiratory support due to worse lung injury is crucial. Our heart center is the first in the nation to report the discovery of a novel blood biomarker for lung injury following heart surgery. Using our heart center biorepository we identified and validated the finding of the new biomarker “Proteoglycan 4” and its correlation with lung injury. In order to validate this finding, a large number of patients need to be tested. Funding from the Hope Fund is supporting the costs of these tests. It is anticipated that if the initial results are correct, cardiac intensivists will be able to predict who is at higher risk for lung injury and adjust their management to minimize the injury which can last lifetime.