Rapid quantitative procalcitonin measurement to diagnose nosocomial infections in newborn infants

Abstract

Rapid measurement of PCT could help to rule out nosocomial infection in newborn infants hospitalised in intensive care units.

Risk Factors for Extubation Failure Following Neonatal Cardiac Surgery*

“…Biomarkers such as c-reactive protein, serum amyloid A, and procalcitonin have been shown to be effective tools for assessing and monitoring the inflammatory burden imposed upon neonates with nosocomial infections and necrotizing enterocolitis [24][25]. These biomarkers have potential to be helpful in determining extubation readiness in infants who develop postoperative infections while recovering from cardiac surgery and represent an exciting area for future research.…”

Serum procalcitonin as a diagnostic marker for neonatal sepsis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Four studies had a retrospective design [27,[30][31][32], whereas the remaining were prospective cohort or case control studies. Seven studies exclusively involved patients with early onset neonatal sepsis [4,27,31,40,47,49,52], and six studies exclusively involved patients with late-onset neonatal sepsis [26,33,34,42,44]. In 4 of the 29 included studies, the comparator group consisted of patients that potentially had sepsis, on the basis of the relevant diagnostic criteria provided, and thus we did not include them in the analysis [29,30,41,48].…”

“…Five studies, involving a total of 535 neonates, were included in the analysis regarding LOS [25,26,34,35,44]. The pooled (95% CI) sensitivity of PCT for the diagnosis of LOS was 90% (73-97%), and the specificity was 88% (72-96%).…”

Procalcitonin in detecting neonatal nosocomial sepsis

“…Without reliable infection markers, neonatologists often start antibiotics for suspected sepsis, exposing many patients to unnecessary treatment. Some authors have proposed procalcitonin (PCT), a calcitonin precursor, as a marker for NS in neonates because tissue PCT release increases during infections 1–6. A reliable diagnostic marker enabling early detection of NS could reduce the unnecessary recourse to antibiotic therapy, which is increasingly responsible for the selection of resistant micro-organisms.…”