ArticleKorean journal of pediatrics2018
Usefulness of the procalcitonin test in young febrile infants between 1 and 3 months of age.
Article in Korean journal of pediatrics, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate for the diagnosis of acute pyelonephritis in children.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Identifying the thresholds of C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, and interleukin-6 among children ≤36 months' old with fever without source at risk of serious bacterial infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Review
- Febrile infants: written guidelines to reduce non-essential hospitalizations.World journal of pediatrics : WJP · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeTo study the usefulness of the procalcitonin (PCT) test in young febrile infants between 1 and 3 months of age.
methodsWe evaluated the medical records of 336 febrile infants between 1 and 3 months of age who visited the Emergency Department or outpatient department of Samsung Changwon Hospital from May 2015 to February 2017, and analyzed the clinical characteristics between infants in the serious bacterial infection (SBI) group and non-SBI group.
resultsAmong the 336 infants, 38 (11.3%) had definitive SBI (bacteremia, n=3; meningitis, n=1; urinary tract infection, n=34). The mean PCT (6.4±11.9 ng/mL) and C-reactive protein (CRP) level (3.8±2.6 mg/dL), and the absolute neutrophil count (ANC) (6,984±4,675) for patients in the SBI group were significantly higher than those for patients in the non-SBI group (PCT, 0.3±1.2 ng/mL; CRP, 1.3±1.6 mg/dL; ANC, 4,888±3,661). PCT had lower sensitivity (43.6%), but higher specificity (92.6%) and accuracy (86.9%) than CRP (92.3%, 25.3%, and 33.0%) for identifying SBI. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) for definitive SBI were PCT 77.0%, CRP 80.8%, WBC 56.8%, ANC 67.8%, and PLT 48.1%. The AUCs for definitive SBI were PCT+CRP 85.4%, PCT+WBC 77.2%, PCT+ANC 81.3%, CRP+WBC 80.1%, and CRP+ANC 81.6%.
conclusionOur results suggest that the PCT test or a combination of PCT and CRP tests is a more accurate and specific biomarker to detect and rule out SBIs.
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