OBJECTIVE The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the survival impact of perioperative chemotherapy (PCT) in patients with gastric signet ring cell (SRC) adenocarcinoma. BACKGROUND PCT is a standard treatment for advanced resectable gastric adenocarcinoma (GA). SRC has a worse prognosis compared to non-SRC and the chemosensitivity of SRC is uncertain. METHODS Among 3010 patients...

OBJECTIVE To determine the usefulness of plasma procalcitonin (PCT) measurement to suspect infectious etiology in febrile patients with systemic autoimmune disease. METHODS PCT, C-Reactive protein (CRP), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and white blood cell count (WBC) were measured in 44 consecutive inpatients with a diagnosis of systemic autoimmune disease and fever >38 masculine C. Aft...

PURPOSE Procalcitonin (PCT) is a current, frequently used marker for severe bacterial infection. The aim of this study was to assess the ability of PCT levels to differentiate bacteremic from nonbacteremic patients with fever. We assessed whether PCT level could be used to accurately rule out a diagnosis of bacteremia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Serum samples and blood culture were obtained from p...

OBJECTIVES This study was designed to evaluate the analytical performance of the novel Lumipulse G1200 BRAHMS procalcitonin (PCT) immunoassay. DESIGN AND METHODS This analytical evaluation encompassed the calculation of the limit of blank (LOB), limit of detection (LOD), functional sensitivity, intra- and inter-assay imprecision, confirmation of linearity and a comparison with the Vidas BRAHM...

The Profile Collection Toolkit (PCT) provides a novel generalized CPU profiling facility. PCT enables arbitrarily late profiling activation and arbitrarily early report generation. PCT usually requires no re-compilation, re-linking, or even restarting of programs. Profiling reports gracefully degrade with available debugging data. PCT uses its debugger controller, dbctl, to drive a debugger’s c...

INTRODUCTION Systemic inflammatory response syndrome is common after surgery, and it can be difficult to discriminate between infection and inflammation. We performed a review of the literature with the aims of describing the evolution of serum procalcitonin (PCT) levels after uncomplicated cardiac surgery, characterising the role of PCT as a tool in discriminating infection, identifying the re...

BACKGROUND Procalcitonin (PCT) is a valuable prognostic biomarker in human sepsis that is predictive of organ dysfunction, septic shock and mortality. Data on PCT in dogs is limited. This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of baseline and serial PCT measurements in dogs with sepsis and to determine the association between PCT and sepsis severity and the presence of organ dysfunctio...

INTRODUCTION The value of measuring procalcitonin (PCT) in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the value of PCT as a marker for microbial etiology and a predictor of outcome in CAP patients. METHODS A single-center observational study was conducted with CAP patients. On admission, their leukocyte count, serum C-reactive protein l...

Porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT) is a cutaneous porphyria with sporadic (type 1) and familial (type 2) subtypes, both resulting from decreased hepatic uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase (UROD) activity. Environmental and genetic factors are involved in the development of PCT, and genetic variants in the cytochrome P450 (CYP ) genes, CYP1A1 and CYP1A2, have been implicated. We investigated the associat...

BACKGROUND We investigated the diagnostic and prognostic utilities of procalcitonin (PCT), B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) in critically ill patients with suspected sepsis, for whom sepsis was diagnosed clinically or based on PCT concentrations. METHODS PCT, BNP, and NGAL concentrations were measured in 340 patients and were followed up ...