ReviewBMC medicine2017
Procalcitonin-guided diagnosis and antibiotic stewardship revisited.
Review in BMC medicine, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 116 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
116 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Procalcitonin for the diagnosis of postoperative bacterial infection after adult cardiac surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Critical care (London, England) · 2024Pooled it
- Early changes in laboratory parameters are predictors of mortality and ICU admission in patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Medical microbiology and immunology · 2021Pooled it
- Diagnostic Accuracy of Procalcitonin Compared to C-Reactive Protein and Interleukin 6 in Recognizing Gram-Negative Bloodstream Infection: A Meta-Analytic Study.Disease markers · 2020Pooled it
- Procalcitonin levels in candidemia versus bacteremia: a systematic review.Critical care (London, England) · 2019Pooled it
- Procalcitonin to initiate or discontinue antibiotics in acute respiratory tract infections.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- Efficacy of curcumin gel as an adjunct to scaling and root planing on salivary procalcitonin level in the treatment of patients with chronic periodontitis: a randomized controlled clinical trial.BMC oral health · 2023Trial
- The impact of fluid resuscitation via colon on patients with severe acute pancreatitis.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Article
- Diagnostics for priority bacterial pathogens: global gaps and research needs for curbing antimicrobial resistance in low-resource settings.The Lancet. Microbe · 2026Review
- Recent advances in the biosensing platforms for sepsis diagnosis.RSC advances · 2026Review
- The Role and Importance of Procalcitonin (PCT) Testing in Rational Antibiotic Prescribing and Antibiotic Stewardship Programs.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2026Review
- Etiopathogenesis and Antibacterial Therapy Approach in Patients with Acute Obstructive Pyelonephritis-A Retrospective Study.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- MXene-based functionalized platforms for high-performance MALDI-TOF MS: application in early-stage bloodstream infection biomarker screening.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Article
- Utility of procalcitonin versus CRP in early sepsis detection.Bioinformation · 2026Article
- Prognostic Utility of Delta-Procalcitonin and Modified Shock Index for Risk Stratification of Sepsis in Acute Care Settings.Journal of community hospital internal medicine perspectives · 2026Article
- Cerebrospinal fluid procalcitonin and neutrophil percentage: a combined biomarker for differentiating bacterial from tuberculous meningitis in antibiotic-pretreated patients.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2026Article
- Exploring proteomic signatures in sepsis and non-infectious systemic inflammatory response syndrome.PloS one · 2026Observational
- Article
- Managing Nonunions and Fracture-Related Infections-A Quarter Century of Knowledge, and Still Curious: A Narrative Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Clinical Features and Prediction Model of Secondary Infection Risk in Adult Patients With Chronic Respiratory Diseases: A Case-Control Study.Journal of clinical medicine research · 2025Article
56 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Several controlled clinical studies have evaluated the potential of the infection biomarker procalcitonin (PCT) to improve the diagnostic work-up of patients with bacterial infections and its influence on decisions regarding antibiotic therapy. Most research has focused on lower respiratory tract infections and critically ill sepsis patients. A clinical utility for PCT has also been found for patients with urinary tract infections, postoperative infections, meningitis, and patients with acute heart failure with possible superinfection (i.e., pneumonia). In these indications, PCT levels measured on hospital admission were found to substantially reduce the initiation of antibiotic treatment in low-risk situations (i.e., bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation). For more severe infections (i.e., pneumonia, sepsis), antibiotic stewardship by monitoring of PCT kinetics resulted in shorter antibiotic treatment durations with early cessation of therapy. Importantly, these strategies appear to be safe without increasing the risk for mortality, recurrent infections, or treatment failures. PCT kinetics also proved to have prognostic value correlating with disease severity (i.e., pancreatitis, abdominal infection) and resolution of illness (i.e., sepsis). Although promising findings have been published in these different types of infections, there are a number of limitations regarding PCT, including suboptimal sensitivity and/or specificity, which makes a careful interpretation of PCT in the clinical context mandatory. This narrative review aims to update clinicians on the strengths and limitations of PCT for patient management, focusing on research conducted within the last 4 years.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.