Erschienen in:
01.02.2004 | Brief Report
Use of Quantitative and Semiquantitative Procalcitonin Measurements to Identify Children with Sepsis and Meningitis
verfasst von:
C. Prat, J. Domínguez, C. Rodrigo, M. Giménez, M. Azuara, S. Blanco, V. Ausina
Erschienen in:
European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases
|
Ausgabe 2/2004
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Excerpt
During infancy and childhood, clinical signs of infection and conventional laboratory markers are not specific in the early phase of disease [
1]. The availability of a parameter that more rapidly identifies children suspected to have bacterial sepsis before microbiological results are available would minimize unnecessary treatments and hospitalization. Since its original description, the importance of procalcitonin (PCT) as an indicator of systemic bacterial infection has been demonstrated in many reports [
2,
3,
4,
5]. The aim of our study was to evaluate the reliability of PCT measurement by quantitative luminometric immunoassay (LIA) in distinguishing between systemic bacterial infection (sepsis and/or meningitis), localized bacterial infection and aseptic meningitis in children, compared to leukocyte count and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. We also evaluated the correlation of a rapid immunochromatographic test (ICT) for semiquantitative PCT measurement in comparison with quantitative test results. …
