Procalcitonin, The Most Reliable Biomarker For Early Diagnosis Of Bacterial Septicaemia

Abstract

Septicaemia, a life threatening infection, caused by invasion of virulent microorganism into blood stream. It is characterized by whole body inflammation, leads to multi-organ dysfunction, resulting in high mortality rate. Immunocompromised patient with Cancer, ICU patient or patient with severe burns becomes more susceptible with its complication. Therefore early diagnosis & anti-microbial therapy is highly important in reducing morbidity & mortality. Unfortunately there are no such gold standard diagnostic method for early diagnosis & therapeutic intervention. In this review I focus the dependence on serum bio-marker for early diagnosis as delay in anti-biotic therapy increases mortality by 7.6%/ hour in patient with septicaemia. But conventional markers like CRP, lactate, BNP and other haematological studies like ESR, Total WBC count etc. are not Specific. To eliminate late diagnosis, serum biomarker Procalcitonin is found to be superior and most reliable. PCT is produced by numerous organ after bacterial pro-inflammatory stimulation and level increases 2-4 hours after bacterial infection. It can be detectable for upto 7 days and level decreases with successful treatment. Mild elevation is seen in viral infection and severe rises seen in bacterial sepsis. Further research work is needed for declaring a gold standard test for sepsis.