Establishment and validation of a logistic regression model for prediction of septic shock severity in children

Abstract Background Septic shock is the most severe complication of sepsis, and is a major cause of childhood mortality, constituting a heavy public health burden. Methods We analyzed the gene expression profiles of septic shock and control samples from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Four differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from survivor and control groups, non-survivor and control groups, and survivor and non-survivor groups were selected. We used data about these genes to establish a logistic regression model for predicting the survival of septic shock patients. Results Leave-one-out cross validation and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis indicated that this model had good accuracy. Differential expression and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) between septic shock patients stratified by prediction score indicated that the systemic lupus erythematosus pathway was activated, while the limonene and pinene degradation pathways were inactivated in the high score group. Conclusions Our study provides a novel approach for the prediction of the severity of pathology in septic shock patients, which are significant for personalized treatment as well as prognostic assessment.