BackgroundA number of biomarkers have been studied for the diagnosis of sepsis in paediatrics, but no gold standard has been identified. Procalcitonin (PCT) was demonstrated to be an accurate biomarker for the diagnosis of sepsis in adults and showed to be promising in paediatrics. Our study reviewed the diagnostic accuracy of PCT as an early biomarker of sepsis in neonates and children with suspected sepsis.MethodsA comprehensive literature search was carried out in Medline/Pubmed, Embase, ISI Web of Science, CINAHL and Cochrane Library, for studies assessing PCT accuracy in the diagnosis of sepsis in children and neonates with suspected sepsis. Studies in which the presence of infection had been confirmed microbiologically or classified as “probable” by chart review were included. Studies comparing patients to healthy subjects were excluded. We analysed data on neonates and children separately.Our primary outcome was the diagnostic accuracy of PCT at the cut-off of 2-2.5 ng/ml, while as secondary outcomes we analysed PCT cut-offs <2 ng/ml and >2.5 ng/ml. Pooled sensitivities and specificities were calculated by a bivariate meta-analysis and heterogeneity was graphically evaluated.ResultsWe included 17 studies, with a total of 1408 patients (1086 neonates and 322 children). Studies on neonates with early onset sepsis (EOS) and late onset sepsis (LOS) were grouped together. In the neonatal group, we calculated a sensitivity of 0.85, confidence interval (CI) (0.76; 0.90) and specificity of 0.54, CI (0.38; 0.70) at the PCT cut-off of 2.0-2.5 ng/ml. In the paediatric group it was not possible to undertake a pooled analysis at the PCT cut-off of 2.0-2.5 ng/ml, due to the paucity of the studies.ConclusionsPCT shows a moderate accuracy for the diagnosis of sepsis in neonates with suspected sepsis at the cut-off of 2.0-2.5 ng/ml. More studies with high methodological quality are warranted, particularly in neonates, studies considering EOS and LOS separately are needed to improve specificity.Trial registrationPROSPERO Identifier: CRD42016033809. Registered 30 Jan 2016.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12879-017-2396-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Camurati-Engelmann disease (CED) is an ultrarare autosomal dominant bone dysplasia. Cortical thickening of the diaphyses of the long bones with narrowing of the medullary cavity are associated with bone pain, waddling gait, muscular weakness, easy fatigability, and a marfanoid body habitus. There is no specific treatment for CED. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or glucocorticoids are ineffective in improving bone lesions. A family with a mild to severe form of CED is described. Two patients received long-term bisphosphonate treatment: the 19-year-old female proband was treated with zoledronic acid for 2.2 years; the 4-year-old male proband was treated with neridronic acid for 16 months and with zoledronic acid for an additional 18 months. In both probands, zoledronic acid treatment significantly improved the clinical symptoms, bone lesions, ambulation, and body habitus. Before treatment, both probands showed a marked increase in serum levels of osteocalcin, procollagen type I N-terminal propeptide, and cross-linked carboxyterminal telopeptide of type I collagen, reflecting an increased bone turnover. Bone marker levels returned to their normal values during treatment. Zoledronic acid treatment may be an important therapeutic option in patients with severe CED. Biochemical markers of bone turnover could be considered as surrogate indexes of CED activity.
BackgroundDifferential diagnosis between sepsis and non-infectious inflammatory disorders demands improved biomarkers. Soluble Triggering Receptor Expression on Myeloid cells (sTREM-1) is an activating receptor whose role has been studied throughout the last decade. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the accuracy of plasma sTREM-1 levels in the diagnosis of sepsis in children with Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS).MethodsA literature search of PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and ISI Web of Knowledge databases was performed using specific search terms. Studies were included if they assessed the diagnostic accuracy of plasma sTREM-1 for sepsis in paediatric patients with SIRS. Data on sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, area under receiver operating characteristic curve were extracted. The methodological quality of each study was assessed using a checklist based on the Quality Assessment Tool for Diagnostic Accuracy Studies.ResultsNine studies comprising 961 patients were included, four of which were in newborns, three in children and two in children with febrile neutropenia. Some data from single studies support a role of sTREM-1 as a diagnostic tool in pediatric sepsis, but cannot be considered conclusive, because a quantitative synthesis was not possible, due to heterogeneity in studies design.ConclusionsThis systematic review suggests that available data are insufficient to support a role for sTREM in the diagnosis and follow-up of paediatric sepsis.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13052-016-0242-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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