Serum procalcitonin levels remain below the threshold of 0.5 ng/ml in all patients with uncomplicated cirrhosis, irrespective of the cause of the disease, while they are significantly elevated when bacterial infection complicates the course of the disease. A significant proportion of patients with acute alcoholic hepatitis on a cirrhotic background as well as of patients with acute on chronic viral hepatitis, without bacterial infection, exhibit serum procalcitonin levels above 0.5 ng/ml, suggesting that this cut-off value is probably not enough to discriminate between patients with or without bacterial infection within these subgroups of patients with liver disease.

Newly hospitalized patients with stroke treated by indwelling catheters were assigned randomly to 3 treatment groups. Group 1 (24 patients) received 3 gm. ampicillin intramuscularly in divided doses 1 hour before, at the time of and 6 hours after insertion of the catheter. Group 2 (28 patients) received daily 1 gm. ampicillin intramuscularly every 8 hours. Group 3 (26 patients) was not subjected to any antimicrobial prophylaxis. Within 1 week after catheter insertion significant bacteriuria developed in 12.5 per cent of the patients in group 1, 42.8 per cent in group 2 and 45.1 per cent in group 3. The difference in the incidence between group 1 and either group 2 or 3 was statistically significant (p less than 0.02 and p less than 0.01, respectively). The mean number of strains (plus or minus standard error of mean) isolated per case of bacteriuria in group 3 (1.25 plus or minus 0.18) was significantly lower (p less than 0.05) and antimicrobial resistant strains were fewer (4 of 15) than in group 2 (1.75 plus or minus 0.13 and 12 of 21, respectively).

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