Is procalcitonin correctly used in medical and surgical departments only in cases with severe bacterial infections? Correlations with the severity scores used in the ICU

The use of procalcitonin (PCT) in the diagnosis of severe bacterial infections has been tested and proven by numerous international studies. In this study we intend to evaluate how PCT is used in patient admission in various medical and surgical departments and the correlations between PCT and severity scores used for patients in critical state. Based on this idea, we conducted a prospective observational study, from January 2008 to December 2013, in which we have enrolled all patients in whom the PCT serum level has been determined. The study was conducted in the Academic Emergency Hospital Sibiu, Romania, where 406 patients were enrolled. We analyzed the motivation for the PCT determination, the initial diagnosis, the presumption of severe bacterial infection, the PCT correlations with the presumptive diagnosis, the values of other proinflammatory markers, and the correlations of the studied markers and the evolution of confirmed cases with the sepsis.