Use of presepsin and procalcitonin for prediction of SeptiFast results in critically ill patients

Abstract Purpose There is a need for identification of marker that could lead physicians to take the right step towards laboratory techniques for documentation of infection. The aim of this study was to investigate whether presepsin and procalcitonin (PCT) levels in patients with suspected sepsis could predict blood culture (BC) and SeptiFast (SF) results. Material and methods 100 patients were included in our study. PCT, C-reactive protein (CRP), and presepsin levels were determined. Differences between groups of patients were assessed by Mann-Whitney U test. Categorical variables were compared using chi-square test. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to determine predictive values of biomarkers for prediction of positive SF results. Results PCT (70.9 ± 106.36 vs. 16.35 ± 26.79) and presepsin (4899.73 ± 5207.81 vs. 1751.59 ± 2830.62) were significantly higher in patients with positive SF in contrast to patients with negative SF. There was no significant difference between patients who had positive and negative BC for PCT and presepsin values. PCT and presepsin showed a similar performance in predicting positive SF results with AUC of 0.75 for PCT and 0.73 for presepsin. Conclusion Presepsin can serve as good predictor of bacteremia detected by SF and it should be included with PCT in protocols for sepsis diagnosing.