Abstract

GONZALEZ-RANGEL, Diana; CAMACHO-MORENO, Germán  and  QUINTERO-GUEVARA, Omar. Procalcitonin as a Biomarker for Sepsis in Children. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2016, vol.64, n.2, pp.215-221. ISSN 0120-0011.  https://doi.org/10.15446/revfacmed.v64n2.50585.

Background. Procalcitonin is a biomarker of severe bacterial infection and sepsis, with diagnostic, monitoring, severity and prognosis applications, that shows values of sensitivity, specificity and variable cutoff in children. Materials and Methods. Retrospective, observational and descriptive study. Patients from 7 days to 18 years old who were taken procalcitonin and cultures on the same day were included. Other biomarkers such as C-reactive protein were assessed. Data were taken from their medical records using an electronic formulary. Results. 274 samples of procalcitonin and cultures were included, corresponding to 162 patients, 59% male, aged 19 days to 13 years (mean=1.5 years). The most common diagnosis was bacterial pneumonia (39%). Of the 274 cultures, 81% were blood cultures, of which 17% were positive. Procalcitonin with cutoff>0.5ng/ml showed sensitivity of 76%, specificity of 46%, PPV 23%, NPV 90% for sepsis, with an AUC 0.6899 (95% CI 0.6059 to 0774). Greater mortality with high values of procalcitonin (p=0.003) was found. Procalcitonin showed better performance than C-reactive protein, leukocyte and neutrophil count for sepsis prediction. Conclusion. Procalcitonin has a good diagnostic performance as a marker of sepsis in children -with a higher usefulness with negative values- and has a good prognostic value for mortality.

Keywords : Procalcitonin; Cultures; Infection; Sepsis; Children.

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