ArticleActa medica Philippina2025
The Diagnostic Utility of Cerebrospinal Fluid Procalcitonin for Acute Bacterial Meningitis and Ventriculitis in Children: A Multicenter Prospective Study.
Article in Acta medica Philippina, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Cerebrospinal fluid cellular and inflammatory profiles in tumor-related postoperative infections: influencing factors and clinical features in oncological patients.American journal of cancer research · 2026Article
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6 authors.
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Abstract
Background and Objective: Accurately diagnosing bacterial meningitis and ventriculitis in children is challenging due to nonspecific symptoms and the lack of specificity in conventional CSF parameters. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) procalcitonin (PCT) is a promising diagnostic marker but studies on its utility in children are lacking. We aimed to assess the diagnostic value of CSF procalcitonin for bacterial meningitis and ventriculitis in children and establish a clinically relevant cut-off level. Methods: A total of 131 patients were included in the study, and the CSF PCT levels were measured in two groups. Group 1 comprised of patients with bacterial meningitis and ventriculitis (n=21), while Group 2 consisted of patients with tuberculous meningitis, fungal meningitis, viral encephalitis, autoimmune encephalitis, central nervous system (CNS) leukemia, and non-infectious or inflammatory CNS conditions (n=110). Results: CSF PCT demonstrated an area under the curve of 96.57% in the receiver operating characteristic analysis. With a cut-off of 0.19 ng/mL, it achieved high sensitivity (90.48%) and specificity (91.82%), making it an excellent test for distinguishing between bacterial meningitis and ventriculitis from control diseases. Conclusion: CSF procalcitonin is highly effective in distinguishing pediatric bacterial meningitis and ventriculitis. Especially in clinical scenarios where the conventional laboratory tests are inconclusive, it can complement clinical assessment to diagnose CNS infections accurately and guide prudent antibiotic use.
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