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Fig. 1 | Critical Care

Fig. 1

From: Dexamethasone and tocilizumab treatment considerably reduces the value of C-reactive protein and procalcitonin to detect secondary bacterial infections in COVID-19 patients

Fig. 1

Patient flowchart. Patients who were immunocompromised based on pre-existent comorbidity or treatment and patients of the second cohort who stayed in another ICU for ≥ 7 days prior to admission to the ICU were excluded. For the analysis of PCT and CRP kinetics following cessation of dexamethasone (DEXA) treatment, patients in whom the dexamethasone treatment was already completed when admitted to the ICU, were excluded. For the analysis of PCT and CRP kinetics in patients developing a secondary infection, patients who were still admitted to the ICU on moment of data analysis (July 2021) were excluded. The remaining patients were divided into a dexamethasone-only group (D+T−) and a dexamethasone and tocilizumab (TOCI) group (D+T+), which were again subdivided into a secondary infection group and a no-secondary infection group. Following data alignment, patients in the no secondary infection groups who were discharged from the hospital on alignment day were excluded because no data was available

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Critical Care

ISSN: 1364-8535