Clinical Utility of Procalcitonin in the Diagnosis of Pneumonia [Infectious Disease]

CONCLUSIONS:
In patients presenting with dyspnea, diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin for pneumonia is only moderate and lower than that of interleukin 6 and CRP. The clinical utility of procalcitonin was lower than expected.

SUMMARY:
Pneumonia has diverse and often unspecific symptoms. As the role of biomarkers in the diagnosis of pneumonia remains controversial, it is often difficult to distinguish pneumonia from other illnesses causing shortness of breath. The current study prospectively enrolled unselected patients presenting with acute dyspnea and directly compared the diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin, interleukin 6, and CRP for the diagnosis of pneumonia. In this setting, diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin for pneumonia was lower as compared to interleukin 6 and CRP. The clinical utility of procalcitonin was lower than expected.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
NCT01831115.

Source: Clinical Chemistry - November 26, 2019 Category: Chemistry Authors: Wussler, D., Kozhuharov, N., Tavares Oliveira, M., Bossa, A., Sabti, Z., Nowak, A., Murray, K., du Fay de Lavallaz, J., Badertscher, P., Twerenbold, R., Shrestha, S., Flores, D., Nestelberger, T., Walter, J., Boeddinghaus, J., Zimmermann, T., Koechlin, L. Tags: Infectious Disease Source Type: research