Article Data

  • Views 1846
  • Dowloads 139

Review

Open Access

Procalcitonin - potential, limitations and availability

  • VLADIMIRA RIMAC1

1Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

DOI: 10.22514/SV101.062015.26 Vol.10,Issue S1,June 2015 pp.84-86

Published: 22 June 2015

*Corresponding Author(s): VLADIMIRA RIMAC E-mail: kutnjakvl@gmail.com

Abstract

Bacterial infections and sepsis are major problems in critically ill patients. Timely diagnosis and therapy reduce morbidity and mortality. Many studies have included the investigation of various biomarkers whose elevated concentrations can indi-cate sepsis; among them, PCT proved to be most useful.

PCT is synthesized in the thyroid gland as a prohormone of calcitonin. In healthy individuals the PCT concentration is <0.1 ng/mL.

The advantage of the PCT is a high nega-tive predictive value for the exclusion of sepsis, with the cut-off value of 0.5 ng/ml. A concentration between 2 and 10 ng/ml indicates strong sepsis, whereas a value ≥10 ng/ml is associated with septic shock. In addition to the diagnosis of sepsis, the measurement of PCT concentration is use-ful for the introduction and monitoring of antibiotic therapy, which is performed ac-cording to an algorithm based on the cut-off value for PCT.

Immunoassays are used to measure PCT concentrations in serum or plasma. It is possible to determine the concentration in whole blood by using point-of-care testing. In pathological conditions that are not associated with sepsis, PCT is useful as a prognostic indicator of disease complica-tions. Some studies suggest that PCT is a potential early indicator of acute coronary syndrome.

Keywords

procalcitonin, bacterial infec-tion, sepsis, intensive care unit

Cite and Share

VLADIMIRA RIMAC. Procalcitonin - potential, limitations and availability. Signa Vitae. 2015. 10(S1);84-86.

References

1. Harbarth S, Holeckova K, Froidevaux C et al. Diagnostic value of procalcitonin, interleukin-6 and interleukin-8 in critically ill patients with suspected sepsis. Am J Resp Crit Care Med 2001; 164: 396–402.

2. Guignant C, Voirin N, Venet F et al. Assessment of pro-vasopressin and pro-adrenomedullin as predictors of 28-day mortality in septic shock patients. Intensive Care Med 2009; 35: 1859–67.

3. Seligman R, Papassotiriou J, Morgenthaler NG et al. Prognostic value of midregional pro-atrial natriuretic peptide in ventilator-associated pneumonia. Intensive Care Med 2008; 34: 2084–91.

4. Assicot M, Gendrel D, Carsin H, Raymond J, Guilbaud J, Bohuon C. High serum procalcitonin concentrations in patients with sepsis and infection. Lancet. 1993; 341 (8844): 515-518 PMID: 8094770.

5. Wiedermann FJ, Kaneider N, Egger P, Tiefenthaler W, Wiedermann CJ, Lindner KH, et al. Migration of human monocytes in re-sponse to procalcitonin. Crit Care Med 2002;30:1112-7.

6. Gilbert D. Serum procalcitonin levels. It is all about confidence. Arch Intern Med 2012;172:722-23.

7. Meisner M. Update on procalcitonin measurements. Ann Lab Med 2014;34:263-273.

8. Charles PE, Ladoire S, Aho S et al. Serum procalcitonin elevation in critically ill patients at the onset of bacteraemia caused by either Gram negative or Gram positive bacteria. BMC Infect Dis 2008;8:38-46.

9. Hochreiter M, Kohler T, Schweiger AM et al. Procalcitonin to guide duration of antibiotic therapy in intensive care patients: a randomised prospective controlled trial. Crit Care 2009; 13: R83.

10. de Wolf HK, Gunnewiek JK, Berk Y, van den Ouweland J, de Metz M: Comparison of a new procalcitonin assay from roche with the established method on the brahms kryptor. Clin Chem 2009, 55:1043-1044.

11. Brahms. PCT sensitive KRYPTOR Assay Characteristics. http://www.brahms-usa.com/assays (10 May 2015, date last accessed)

12. Package insert: BRAHMS PCT sensitive Kryptor – Instructions for use

13. Package insert: Elecsys BRAHMS PCT – Roche Elecsys and Cobas analyzers.

14. Package insert: ADVIA Centaur BRAHMS PCT – Siemens ADVIA Centaur analyzers.

15. Package insert: Vidas BRAHMS PCT.

16. Mofidi R, Suttie SA, Patil PV, Ogston S, Parks RW: The value of procalcitonin at predicting the severity of acute pancreatitis and development of infected pancreatic necrosis: systematic review. Surgery 2009, 146:72-81.

17. van Nieuwkoop C, Bonten TN, van’t Wout JW, Kuijper EJ, Groeneveld GH, Becker MJ, Koster T, Wattel-Louis GH, Delfos NM, Ablij HC, Leyten EM, van Dissel JT: Procalcitonin reflects bacteremia and bacterial load in urosepsis syndrome: a prospective observational study. Crit Care 2010,14:R206.

18. Hugle T, Schuetz P, Mueller B, Laifer G, Tyndall A, Regenass S, Daikeler T: Serum procalcitonin for discrimination between septic and non-septic arthritis. Clin Exp Rheumatol 2008, 26:453-456.

19. Arneth B : High-Sensitivity Procalcitonin (hs-PCT): A Marker for Identification of Arteriosclerosis and Myocardial Infarction?LabMedicine 2008, 39:607-610.

Abstracted / indexed in

Science Citation Index Expanded (SciSearch) Created as SCI in 1964, Science Citation Index Expanded now indexes over 9,200 of the world’s most impactful journals across 178 scientific disciplines. More than 53 million records and 1.18 billion cited references date back from 1900 to present.

Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition aims to evaluate a journal’s value from multiple perspectives including the journal impact factor, descriptive data about a journal’s open access content as well as contributing authors, and provide readers a transparent and publisher-neutral data & statistics information about the journal.

Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index The CAS Source Index (CASSI) Search Tool is an online resource that can quickly identify or confirm journal titles and abbreviations for publications indexed by CAS since 1907, including serial and non-serial scientific and technical publications.

Index Copernicus The Index Copernicus International (ICI) Journals database’s is an international indexation database of scientific journals. It covered international scientific journals which divided into general information, contents of individual issues, detailed bibliography (references) sections for every publication, as well as full texts of publications in the form of attached files (optional). For now, there are more than 58,000 scientific journals registered at ICI.

Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research The Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research (GFMER) is a non-profit organization established in 2002 and it works in close collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO). The overall objectives of the Foundation are to promote and develop health education and research programs.

Scopus: CiteScore 1.3 (2023) Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 Inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-level subject fields: life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences and health sciences.

Embase Embase (often styled EMBASE for Excerpta Medica dataBASE), produced by Elsevier, is a biomedical and pharmacological database of published literature designed to support information managers and pharmacovigilance in complying with the regulatory requirements of a licensed drug.

Submission Turnaround Time

Conferences

Top