BACKGROUND Procalcitonin (PCT) is an established laboratory marker for disease severity in patients with infection and sepsis. In addition, PCT has been shown to be an effective marker for a limited number of localized infections. However, whether or not PCT has any diagnostic value for acute appendicitis, still remains unclear. The purpose of this prospective bicenter study was, therefore, to ...

Procalcitonin (PCT) and C-reactive protein (CRP) are important biological markers used in the diagnosis of severe infections. The aim of this study was to evaluate the consistency of blood culture with PCT and CRP in differentiating contamination and non-bacteremia from true bacteremia. In this study blood samples were obtained from 809 febrile patients and analyzed using BACTEC 9120 system. Al...

background: the differentiation of infected diabetic foot ulcers (idfu) from non infected diabetic foot ulcers (nidfu) is a challenging issue for clinicians. objectives: recently, procalcitonin (pct) was introduced as a remarkable inflammatory marker. we aimed to evaluate the accuracy of pct in comparison to other inflammatory markers for distinguishing idfu from nidfu. conclusions: these resul...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the role of serum procalcitonin (PCT) level at admission in predicting significant infections and deaths among children on chemotherapy presenting with fever. METHODS Children with clinically significant (CSI) and microbiologically documented (MDI) infections were identified using standard definitions. Association of PCT with CSI, MDI and mortality was analyzed. RESULT...

This study evaluated the value of procalcitonin (PCT) levels in pleural effusion to differentiate the etiology of parapneumonic effusion (PPE). Forty-one consecutive PPE patients were enrolled and were divided into bacterial and non-bacterial PPE. Blood and pleural effusion samples were collected for PCT measurement on admission and analyzed for diagnostic evaluation. PCT of pleural fluid was s...

Procalcitonin (PCT) has been shown to be a useful surrogate marker in identifying patients with various bacterial infections. PCT has been studied as a diagnostic marker in differentiating bacterial pneumonia from other respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations or viral pneumonia. Differentiating bacterial from nonbacterial pneumonia using PCT has shown ...

INTRODUCTION Procalcitonin (PCT) is a biomarker for the clinical diagnosis of bacterial infection that is more specific and earlier than fever, changes in white blood cell count, and blood cultures. Congestive heart failure is an important cause of endotoxin resorption from the intestine, which significantly increases PCT expression in noninfected patients with heart failure. The diagnostic per...

BACKGROUND In cardiac surgery, elevation of procalcitonin (PCT) could be observed postoperatively in the absence of any evidence of infection and also seems to be a prognostic marker. PCT levels measured in patients undergoing Type A aortic dissection (TAAD) were used to determine prognostic values for complications and surgical outcomes. METHODS Measurements of PCT, C-reactive protein (CRP),...

BACKGROUND Procalcitonin (PCT) is being used as a marker of bacterial infections. Although there are several studies showing the diagnostic yield of PCT to differentiate bacterial involvement in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations (COPDE), the prognostic yield of PCT in severe COPDE has been studied less. OBJECTIVES The primary aim was to determine whether the level of serum P...