Title: Diagnosis significance and usefulness of plasma procalcitonin in community-acquired pneumonia
Abstract: Objective To investigate the diagnosis significance and usefulness of plasma procalcitonin(PCT) in communityacquired pneumonia(CAP) and estimate of severity. Methods A total of 120 patients with CAP were enrolled in this study, and 20 healthy individuals were served as the controls.CAP patients were divided into three CAP groups according to different severity assessment criteria. The variance of PCT and C-reactive protein(CRP)levels were detected and analyzed. Results The mean procalcitonin and CRP levels were significantly increased in CAP patients than in healthy controls(P0.05),and there were statistically significant differences among the difference degree of severity of the disease(P0.05). When the best cut-off value of PCT was defined as 1.5 ng / ml, the sensitivity and specificity were 93.7 % and 86.4%,respectively. The area under receiver operating characteristic(ROC) curve of PCT was 0.912(95% confidence interval:0.814-0.962), which was higher than those of CRP [0.826(95% CI:0.721-0.895)]. Conclusions Plasma PCT level is correlated with the severity of CAP.Dynamic measurement of PCT may be helpful to evaluate condition of CAP patients.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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