Gut microbiota as early potential biomarker for detecting infectious complications in cardiac surgery patients

Cardiac surgery remains a field of medicine with a high percentage of postoperative complications, including infectious ones. Modern data indicate a close relationship of infectious disorders with pathological changes in the composition of the gut microbiome, however the extent of such changes in cardiac surgery patients are not fully clarified. In this prospective, observational, single centre, pilot study, 72 patients were included, among them 12 - with the infectious complications. We analyzed the features of the fecal microbiota before and in the early postoperative period, as one of the markers for predicting the occurrence of bacterial infection. Although an intra-individual variation in composition of gut microbiota, we revealed the significant change in microbial composition in the group of patients with infectious complications compared to the non-infectious group before and after cardiac surgery. Our study demonstrated that even before the surgery, the microbial composition in patients subsequently with the addition of a bacterial infection in the early postoperative period was significantly changed. Further studies will evaluate the clinical significance of the identified proportions of individual taxa of the intestinal microbiota and consider the microbiota as a novel target for reducing the risk of infectious complications.