Do We Need Procalcitonin for Sepsis?

Globally, sepsis and its complications are a major cause of acute illness and death. The American College of Chest Physicians and Society of Critical Care Medicine defined sepsis as systemic inflammatory response caused by infection. However, the major challenge remains, how can we prove there is an infection? Culture best identifies it, but only in about 30% of patients with sepsis. False positivity of cultures further complicates the situation. Clinical signs of sepsis—including fever, tachycardia, and leucocytosis—are non-specific and overlap with signs of systemic inflammatory response syndromes (SIRS) of non-infectious origin, making detection of sepsis a clinical challenge. As a result, delay in diagnosis and treatment of sepsis is responsible for increased mortality.

In order to prove the presence of bacterial infection, serum biomarkers like procalcitonin (PCT) are considered useful. Biochemically, PCT is the prohormone of the hormone calcitonin, released into the circulation in response to bacterial infection. PCT is the best-studied sepsis biomarker for clinical use. Among all sepsis markers, only PCT has achieved universal use throughout developed countries in the last decade.

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Do We Need Procalcitonin for Sepsis? 

Source: AACC