Research on the diagnostic effect of PCT level in serum on patients with sepsis due to different pathogenic causes

L. Gai, Y. Tong, B.-Q. Yan

Intensive Care Unit, The Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Ningbo University, Ningbo, China. ybqzj@sina.com

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• Infectious Diseases

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the diagnostic effect of procalcitonin level in serum for patients with sepsis due to different pathogenic causes.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The clinical data of 132 sepsis patients were analyzed. Those patients were admitted to the Affiliated Hospital of Medical School of Ningbo University from January 2014 to January 2017. According to the blood culture results before antimicrobial therapy, patients were divided into two groups: Gram-negative bacteria group (G- group) and Gram-positive bacteria group (G+ group). The indexes, such as SOFA score, APACHE II score, length of stay in hospital and mortality rate, were used to evaluate disease severity of the two groups. The procalcitonin, WBC, hs-CRP and NEU% were detected and compared between the two groups of patients.

RESULTS: A total of 132 pathogenic bacteria were detected in 132 patients, of which 44 patients were infected with G– bacteria and 88 patients were infected with G+ bacteria. Patients in G– group were mainly infected with Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Klebsiella pneumoniae, while patients in G+ group were mainly infected with Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus aureus. The SOFA score, APACHE II score and mortality rate in G- group were higher than those in G+ group. The PCT levels in G– group and G+ group were (54.89±21.64) ng/mL and (21.13±1.30) ng/mL, respectively. The PCT level in G– group was higher than that in G+ group, and the difference was statistically significant between them (p<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in length of stay in hospital between the two groups (p>0.05). There were no statistically significant differences in WBC, hs-CRP and NEU% between the two groups (p>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: The procalcitonin level in serum of sepsis patients at early stage of bloodstream infection is significantly elevated and has diagnostic value for different pathogenic bacteria groups. It can also reflect the disease severity and predict the prognosis of sepsis patients.

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