Roles of procalcitonin and C-reaction protein in the diagnosis of bacterial infection disease / 中国医师杂志

ABSTRACT

Obiective To study the value of procalcitonin (PCT) and C-reaction protein (CRP)in the diagnosis of bacterial infection.Methods PCT and CRP in 2120 patients were retrospectively analyzed.Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to compare the diagnostic capacity between two indices.Correlation between PCT and CRP was analyzed among 178 patients with bacterial infection.Results Areas under ROC curve (AUC) were 0.957 ±0.016 for PCT and 0.712 ± 0.04 for CRP.There was statistical significance of the AUC for PCT and CRP.The optimum cutoff value for PCT was 0.4 μg/L,which had a sensitivity of 90.0％ and a specificity of 90.9％.The optimum cutoff value for CRP was 2.27mg/L,which had a sensitivity of 72.0％ and a specificity of 57.3％.In the 2120 patients,there was the situation which PCT was normal (＜0.1 μg/L) when CRP was normal (＜0.8 mg/L).Conclusions In prediction of bacterial infection,CRP was not good,but PCT had high clinical value because of rapid detection,less interference and high specificity.In suspected bacterial infection patients,PCT was considered not to be detected temporarily if CRP was normal.In this way,there was the economic value which the patient's medical costs may be Controlled and medical resources be saved.Combined with its half-life,monitoring and analyzing the PCT change is valuable for efficacy determination and assessment of the patients'conditions.