OBJECTIVE To explore the distribution of pathogens isolated from the heart failure patients complicated with pulmonary infection and analyze the predictive values of serum monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), microribonucleic acid-21 (miR-21) and long non-coding ribonucleic acid (lncRNA)nuclear rich transcript 1 (NEAT1).

METHODS A total of 403 patients with chronic heart failure who were treated in cardiovascular medicine department of Huaihe Hospital, Henan University from Apr 2021 to Jan 2023 were enrolled in the study and were divided into the infection group with 104 cases and the no infection group with 299 cases according to the status of pulmonary infection. The distribution of the pathogens isolated from the chronic heart failure patients complicated with pulmonary infection was observed, and the values of MCP-1, miR-21 and lncRNA NEAT1 in prediction of the pulmonary infection were analyzed by means of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

RESULTS Totally 125 strains of pathogens were isolated from the the 104 chronic heart failure patients complicated with pulmonary infection, 76.00% of which were gram-negative bacteria. The levels of serum MCP-1, miR-21 and lncRNA NEAT1 of the infection group were higher than those of the no infection group(P < 0.05). ROC curve analysis showed that the area under curve (AUC) of the joint detection of serum MCP-1, miR-21 and lncRNA NEAT1 was 0.916 in prediction of the pulmonary infection in the patients with chronic heart failure, with the sensitivity 84.62%, the specificity 84.62%.

CONCLUSION The gram-negative bacteria are dominant among the pathogens isolated from the chronic heart failure patients complicated with pulmonary infection. The patients show high expression levels of serum MCP-1, miR-21 and lncRNA NEAT1, and the joint detection of the three indexes has higher value in prediction of the pulmonary infection in the chronic heart failure patients.