calca-protein--human and Intestinal-Diseases

In recent years, procalcitonin has emerged as a promising marker for bacterial infection, with the high sensitivity and specificity.. This report presents a 76-year-old woman with fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The clinical and laboratory examination revealed that the patient had a suspected serious intestinal infection and sepsis. The extremely high level of procalcitonin and positive blood culture result confirmed our diagnosis.. Early identification of severe sepsis sometimes is very difficult. Procalcitonin is a useful tool in the early diagnosis of sepsis, differentiating from other inflammatory syndrome. The high PCT level (10 ng/ml) in this case could suggest serious bacterial infection and sepsis, and also predicts mortality and worse outcome.

Topics: Aged; Bacterial Infections; Biomarkers; C-Reactive Protein; Calcitonin; Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide; Female; Humans; Intestinal Diseases; Prognosis; Protein Precursors; Sepsis; Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome

Procalcitonin test (PCT) has been proposed to check severity of generalized infections or sepsis. The authors measured the PCT values with PCT-Q quick test (BRAHMS DIAGNOSTICA GmbH, Berlin) at 14 surgical patients treated in their intensive care unit (7 sepsis, 4 peritonitis, 2 localized pancreatic abscess, 1 postoperative fever). At 3 septic patients (2 pancreatitis, 1 intestinal necrosis) they measured the PCT levels repeatedly during treatment. In 2 patients with localized pancreatic abscess and in 1 patient with postoperative fever without evidence of infection the PCT levels were low (< 0.5 ng/ml). At 4 patients with peritonitis following gastric or colon perforation the PCT levels were highly elevated (> 10 ng/ml). At 7 patients with severe sepsis the PCT values were high (> 2 ng/ml), except for 1 patient with intestinal necrosis. At this patient the PCT levels were repeatedly low. In 2 septic patients with pancreatitis elevated PCT levels indicated the need for surgery. In most patients PCT was a good indicator of generalized infections. PCT levels measured repeatedly in sepsis were lower than in patients with peritonitis.

Topics: Abscess; Adult; Aged; Calcitonin; Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide; Critical Care; Female; Humans; Intensive Care Units; Intestinal Diseases; Male; Middle Aged; Necrosis; Pancreatitis; Pancreatitis, Acute Necrotizing; Peritonitis; Predictive Value of Tests; Protein Precursors; Sepsis