Castillo-Albarrán FM, Pérez-Jáuregui J, Noffal-Nuño VM

Language: Spanish
References: 6
Page: 4-6
PDF size: 32.80 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Infectious diseases increase procalcitonin (PCT) serum levels; this fact allows the differentiation between inflammatory diseases without an infectious condition and those caused by infection (bacterial, parasitic or fungic). The aim of the present study is to assess the usefulness of serum PCT in the diagnosis of sepsis in hospitalized patients. We performed an observational and retrospective analysis that included 949 serum samples from hospitalized patients to which PCT measurement was performed from January 24th to July 17^th 2009. We included those patients with more than 2 PCT measurements greater than 2ng/ml during their hospitalization. The test results were for a total of 67 patients who were classified according to the following diagnoses at discharge: lower respiratory tract infection 19, abdominal sepsis 15, neoplasm 11, neonatal sepsis 9, politraumatism 5, upper respiratory tract infection 3, and other 5. 68% of studied patients showed an increase in PCT levels related to an infectious disease. In patients with abdominal sepsis we found PCT levels from 2.15 to 46.66 ng/mL. We consider that PCT measurement is an useful tool for the purpose of bacterial infection diagnosis in hospitalized patients as there was a good correlation between the PCT level and severity of sepsis in the studied patients, and that it is also useful for patient follow up and monitoring response to treatment.

REFERENCES

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