Tehran University Medical Journal

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Background: Bacterial meningitis is a fatal disease with high mortality and morbidity that needs emergency management. But due to nonspecific signs and symptoms it&aposs diagnosis in children is difficult. Recently procalcitonin has been used for diagnosis of serious bacterial infections like bacterial meningitis. We conducted a prospective study in children for evaluation of procalcitonin in differential diagnosis of acute bacterial and viral meningitis.

Materials and Methods: In a prospective process research, we measured CSF procalcitonin levels in 43 children older than two months referred to Markaz Tebbi hospital. According to the results of universal PCR the patients were divided into two groups: bacterial meningitis (n=11) and nonbacterial meningitis (n=32). To analysis the results, Mann-Whitney test was used.

Results: CSF procalcitonin level in bacterial meningitis was significantly higher than viral meningitis (1.72±0.9 ng/ml and 0.71±0.04ng/ml respectively,Pvalue= 0.00). A serum procalcitonin level >0.5 ng/ml had high sensitivity and specificity ( 90.1% and 97.1% respectively) in the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis.

Conclusion: CSF procalcitonin level seems to be a valuable marker in differentiating between bacterial and viral meningitis.

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Background: Sepsis is the leading cause of hospital admission and mortality. One marker for differentiation between infectious and non-infectious diseases is serum procalcitonin (PCT) level. The goal of this study was evaluation of serum procalcitonin level for differentiation among infectious & non infectious systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS).
Methods: In a cross sectional study 263 patients with probable symptoms of sepsis that admitted to emergency department of Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex in Tehran, Iran, between 2006 and 2008, were evaluated for serum procalcitonin level by semi quantitative method. The clinical findings, demographic and laboratory data were identified by reviewing the medical notes.
Results: A total of 263 patients enrolled in the study. Mean age in study patients was 46.9 year (20.7) and most of the patients were male (65.8%). In 104 patients (39.5%) serum procalcitonin level was less than 0.5 (ng/ml), in 49 patients (18.6%) was between 0.5 and 2 (ng/ml), in 74 patients (28.1%) was between 2 and 10 (ng/ml) and in 36 patients (13.8%) was more than 10 (ng/ml). Sixty three patients (60.6%) with PCT<0.5ng/ml, had non-infectious SIRS, while all patients with PCT≥10ng/ml, had infectious SIRS. Procalcitonin level in patients with infectious SIRS was significantly more than patients with non-infectious SIRS (p<0.0001). Sensitivity of test for cut off point of 0.5, 2 and 10 (ng/ml) were 89.2%, 67.1% and 22.8% respectively, and its specificity for cut off points of 0.5, two and 10 were 82.9%, 96.2% and 100% respectively.
Conclusions: Procalcitonin level in combination with an appropriate clinical assessment can help us in beginning of antibiotic therapy timely and improve diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of patients with sepsis.

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Background: Sepsis is one of the most important causes of mortality in severely ill ICU patients. At least, a part of high mortality rate in sepsis patients is due to less specific clinical symptoms for prompt diagnosis. Recently some studies report that serum levels of procalcitonin will increase in these patients but changes of serum levels following treatments is not known. This study was designed to determin procalcitonin levels in patients with bacterial infectious disease in ICU, initially and during therapy and compare the levels during response to treatment.

Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on ICU patients with infectious diseases, blood specimen collected on day 1 and then in days 3 and 7 of ICU admission. The semi-quantitative PCT-Q test was performed.

Results: Thirty five patients, 22(62.9 %) men and 13(37.1%) women, were enrolled in this study. 18(51.4%) patients died. Procalcitonin level in most patients in admission day was more than 10 ng/ml [16 (45.7%)] but in patients that react to treatment, decline to lower than 0.5 ng/ml [14(77.8%)]. Mean rank of procalcitonin level from 1.14 ng/ml in first day reached to 2.72 ng/ml in seventh day (p<0.0001).

Conclusions: This study showed that serum procalcitonin levels in ICU patients with bacterial sepsis significantly decrease following response to treatment. The measurement of serum procalcitonin in ICU patients with bacterial infectious diseases at first arrival day and following treatment is recommended.