ArticleTropical medicine & international health : TM & IH2020
Sensitivity of C-reactive protein for the identification of patients with laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections in northern Tanzania.
Article in Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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
7 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- The accuracy of CRP to detect bacteraemia in Malawian children.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Prediction of bloodstream infection using machine learning based primarily on biochemical data.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Antibacterial Utilization for Febrile Illnesses and Laboratory-Confirmed Bloodstream Infections in Northern Tanzania.Open forum infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Accuracy of C-reactive Protein and Procalcitonin for Diagnosing Bacterial Infections Among Subjects With Persistent Fever in the Tropics.Open forum infectious diseases · 2022Article
- C-Reactive Protein for the Early Assessment of Non-Malarial Febrile Patients: A Retrospective Diagnostic Study.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Point-of-Care Biomarkers to Guide Antibiotic Prescription for Acute Febrile Illness in Sub-Saharan Africa: Promises and Caveats.Open forum infectious diseases · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors at 11 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveIdentifying febrile patients requiring antibacterial treatment is challenging, particularly in low-resource settings. In South-East Asia, C-reactive protein (CRP) has been demonstrated to be highly sensitive and moderately specific in detecting bacterial infections and to safely reduce unnecessary antibacterial prescriptions in primary care. As evidence is scant in sub-Saharan Africa, we assessed the sensitivity of CRP in identifying serious bacterial infections in Tanzania.
methodsSamples were obtained from inpatients and outpatients in a prospective febrile illness study at two hospitals in Moshi, Tanzania, 2011-2014. Bacterial bloodstream infections (BSI) were established by blood culture, and bacterial zoonotic infections were defined by ≥4 fold rise in antibody titre between acute and convalescent sera. The sensitivity of CRP in identifying bacterial infections was estimated using thresholds of 10, 20 and 40 mg/l. Specificity was not assessed because determining false-positive CRP results was limited by the lack of diagnostic testing to confirm non-bacterial aetiologies and because ascertaining true-negative cases was limited by the imperfect sensitivity of the diagnostic tests used to identify bacterial infections.
resultsAmong 235 febrile outpatients and 569 febrile inpatients evaluated, 31 (3.9%) had a bacterial BSI and 61 (7.6%) had a bacterial zoonosis. Median (interquartile range) CRP values were 173 (80-315) mg/l in bacterial BSI, and 108 (31-208) mg/l in bacterial zoonoses. The sensitivity (95% confidence intervals) of CRP was 97% (83%-99%), 94% (79%-98%) and 90% (74%-97%) for identifying bacterial BSI, and 87% (76%-93%), 82% (71%-90%) and 72% (60%-82%) for bacterial zoonoses, using thresholds of 10, 20 and 40 mg/l, respectively.
conclusionC-reactive protein was moderately sensitive for bacterial zoonoses and highly sensitive for identifying BSIs. Based on these results, operational studies are warranted to assess the safety and clinical utility of CRP for the management of non-malaria febrile illness at first-level health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.