Evidence · Systematic review or meta-analysis
Accuracy of serum procalcitonin for the diagnosis of sepsis in neonates and children with systemic inflammatory syndrome: a meta-analysis.
- Early-onset sepsis
- Infection
- Late-onset sepsis
- Medical
This paper is from 2017, more than five years ago. Newer evidence may have been published since.
Summary
This meta-analysis of 17 studies (1408 patients, mostly neonates) evaluates the diagnostic accuracy of serum procalcitonin as an early biomarker of sepsis in neonates and children with suspected sepsis. Neonatal early- and late-onset sepsis studies were pooled together, with separate analysis for older children. Procalcitonin showed moderate accuracy in neonates, with reasonable sensitivity but limited specificity at the cut-off studied. The authors call for higher-quality studies that analyse early- and late-onset sepsis separately.
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- Licence:
- Open (Creative Commons)
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