UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency that occurs when an infection causes a chain reaction throughout the body that can lead to the failure of multiple organs in rapid ...

Procalcitonin, or PCT, screening on the first day of a patient intensive care unit’s admission appears to be a promising diagnostic tool for identifying sepsis, according to a new study in CHEST.

Our immune systems can respond swiftly to an infection. But when the immune response is excessive or uncontrolled, it can cause a life-threatening condition known as sepsis. Any infection can lead to ...

A groundbreaking UK study led by the University of Liverpool has examined whether an additional blood test called procalcitonin (PCT) could safely shorten the time children spend on intravenous (IV) ...

A new blood test designed to detect sepsis earlier in at-risk patients demonstrated a survival rate of 95 percent in a study led by Penn State. The study, published July 14 in Critical Care ...

Bacterial and viral infections produce a wide range of similar signs and symptoms leading often to the inappropriate use of antibiotics. Close to 2.8 million people in the United States get an ...

"We believe that our findings could be useful to guide the clinical evaluation in the emergency department in different ways . . . procalcitonin level should be evaluated not only on admission, but ...

Compared with usual care, procalcitonin-guided antibiotic therapy does not reduce the duration of intravenous antibiotic treatment in children hospitalised with bacterial infections, shows a new trial ...

Although clinical trials have demonstrated the utility of procalcitonin (PCT) testing and potential benefit on antibiotic stewardship, findings suggest that clinicians do not order PCT testing with ...

To be considered clinically relevant, a biomarker must have a high DA; [32] that is, it must have high sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) ...