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Procalcitonin: a prognostic marker for critically ill

Introduction

Procalcitonin (PCT) is a marker of sepsis and the levels correlate with the severity of illness.

Methods

A prospective, observational study conducted in the medical surgical intensive therapy unit of a tertiary-care centre in India. Three hundred critically ill adult patients with suspected sepsis during any time of the intensive therapy unit stay in whom PCT was estimated were included in the study. PCT was assessed by quantitative immunoluminometric assay. The demographics of the study population, and APACHE II and APACHE IV scores were recorded.

Results

Demographic character of the study population was as follows: median age 61 years, male:female ratio 174:126, median APACHE II and APACHE IV scores 17 and 59, respectively, and medical:surgical patients 265:35. See Table 1 and Figure 1 for receiver operating characteristic analysis.

Table 1 Comparison between APACHE II, APACHE IV and PCT
Figure 1
figure 1

Receiver operating characteristic analysis of APACHE II, APACHE IV and PCT.

Conclusion

PCT is a reliable marker for prognostication with a high negative predictive value and comparable with APACHE prediction models.

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Bhattacharyya, M., Todi, S. Procalcitonin: a prognostic marker for critically ill. Crit Care 13 (Suppl 1), P388 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1186/cc7552

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