Somia Abid, Ejaz Hassan Khan, Mohsin Shafi, Ahmed Rafiq, Shaheena Shaheena, Amna Gul.
Comparison of Serum Procalcitonin with Blood Culture (Gold Standard) for the Identification of Bacterial Infection in Critically Ill patients.
Adv Basic Med Sci Jan ;4(2):65-9.

Background: To evaluate the determinative correctness of Procalcitonin (PCT) for identification of bacterial sepsis (gram positive  and  gram negative bacterial infection) in seriously morbid subjects who will get admission in ICU/emergency deptt. of Khyber teaching hospital  and  comparing it with  blood cultures (gold standard). Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study carried out in ICU /emergency deptt. of Khyber teaching hospital Peshawar  from  March 2019  to  August  2019. A total of 75 patients including  51 patients   having  blood   culture positive and 24 patients  having  blood  culture negative  were  selected through  non – probability consecutive  sampling  technique. Results: In our study, mean levels were significantly higher for blood culture positive than for blood culture negative cases (p value 0.000) . Cut off level of serum PCT for identification of bacterial sepsis was  0.5ng/ml in critically ill patients . Plasma  PCT   levels  have  sensitivity, specificity, PPV  and  NPV of 92%, 80%, 90.2% , and 83.3%  respectively in determining blood culture positive than blood culture negative patients. Furthermore it was revealed that PCT   had an (AUC =0.97) for culture positive cases and had  an (AUC= 0.025) for blood culture negative cases. Conclusion: Sensitivity for PCT  is  greater than specificity, so serum PCT assay is a useful screening test  and  also  a quick  indicator  of  bacterial  sepsis  in  critically  ill  patients.

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