Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), a newly identified damage-associated molecular pattern, has been observed in trauma patients, however, little is known concerning the relationship between plasma mtDNA levels and concrete post-traumatic complications, particularly systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). The aim of this study is to determine whether plasma mtDNA levels are associated with injury severity and cloud predict post-traumatic SIRS in patients with acute traumatic injury.

Eighty-six consecutive patients with acute traumatic injury were prospectively enrolled in this study. The plasma mtDNA concentration was measured by a real-time, quantitative PCR assay for the human ND2 gene. The study population’s clinical and laboratory data were analyzed.

The median plasma mtDNA was higher in trauma patients than in healthy controls (865.196 (251.042-2565.40)pg/ml vs 64.2147 (43.9049-80.6371)pg/ml, P<0.001) and was independently correlated with the ISS score (r=0.287, P<0.001). The plasma mtDNA concentration was also significantly higher in patients who developed post-traumatic SIRS than in patients who did not (1774.03 (564.870-10901.3)pg/ml vs 500.496 (145.415-1285.60)pg/ml, P<0.001). Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that the plasma mtDNA was an independent predictors for post-traumatic SIRS (OR, 1.183 (95%CI, 1.015-1.379), P=0.032). Further ROC analysis demonstrated that a high plasma mtDNA level predicted post-traumatic SIRS with a sensitivity of 67% and a specificity of 76%, with a cut-off value of 1.3185 µg/ml being established, and the area under the ROC curves (AUC) was 0.725 (95% CI 0.613-0.837).

Plasma mtDNA was an independent indictor with moderate discriminative power to predict the risk of post-traumatic SIRS.