Plasma Procalcitonin: Another Arrow in Our Quiver?

Procalcitonin and white blood cells, combined predictors of infection in cardiac surgery patients

“…10,11,27 Most previous studies have indicated that PCT alone does not aid in predicting the development of infection. 11,25,26,28 The cutoff value for PCT as a biomarker of infection ranges from 0.5-1.5 ng/mL. 9,29 Jebali et al took the maximum value of each biomarker on the third postoperative day or later, using the ROC curve to identify the best cutoff value for each biomarker to diagnose infection.…”

Procalcitonin: Does It Have a Role in the Diagnosis, Management and Prognosis of Patients with Sepsis?

“…After production, PCT is immediately cleaved into three distinct molecules; calcitonin, katacalcin and an N-terminal fragment, although a very small amount of the whole PCT molecule is released into the systemic circulation resulting in very low normal blood levels (<0.1 ng/mL) and have no physiological effect. 5,6 It has however, been identified that under the influence of bacteriumspecific pro-inflammatory cytokines, all parenchymal tissues release PCT with resulting blood levels increasing to >100 ng/mL. 7 The presence of bacterial endotoxins, bacterial lipopolysaccharide, tumour necrosis factor and interleukins have been identified as being primarily responsible for PCT synthesis 8 with levels of PCT higher in patients with Gramnegative bacteraemia as opposed to those with Gram-positive bacteraemia.…”