Publication:

Diagnostic and prognostic significance of procalcitonin in septicemia

Background Sepsis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Early diagnosis and treatment with adequate antimicrobial therapy are essential for successful treatment. Despite the use of available treatment modalities mortality in sepsis remains high, often due to delayed diagnosis and treatment.

Methods A total of 60 patients were enrolled from Nehru Hospital, B.R.D. Medical College, Gorakhpur during the study period July 2013 to July 2014. All the patients were subjected to detailed clinical examination and investigations.  Patient’s clinical profile, progression of disease and outcome were recorded. PCT and various other relevant factors were measured in all study subjects. The study was designed to assess the levels of serum PCT in patients with septicemia and to see whether serum PCT level correlates with severity of septicemia and survival outcome.

Results Procalcitonin is a useful marker for severity of infection. High procalcitonin level is highly specific for infection. Low procalcitonin level cannot be used safely to exclude the presence of infection. Higher level of serum procalcitonin predicts mortality better than other parameters available.

Conclusions From present study we can conclude that although sepsis is mainly a clinical diagnosis and its severity can be assessed by scores like APACHE II, but serum procalcitonin is a good marker for the assessing severity of the sepsis. Serum procalcitonin can aid in early diagnosis as it appears in blood earlier than other markers.