title: Procalcitonin for early prediction of survival outcome in postoperative critically ill patients with severe sepsis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Identification of postoperative patients at high risk of dying early after intensive care unit (ICU) admission through a fast and readily available parameter may help in determining therapeutic interventions or further diagnostic procedures that could have an impact on patients' outcome. The aim of our study was to assess the utility of procalcitonin (PCT) and other readily available parameters, as useful early (days 1-3) predictors of mortality in postoperative patients diagnosed with severe sepsis within 24 h preceding their operation.
  
  
  METHODS
  More than a period of 2 yr, subsets of 69 postoperative patients admitted with severe sepsis and 890 non-septic ICU patients were investigated. PCT, C-reactive protein (CRP) and sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score were recorded over the duration of ICU stay.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PCT area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.78 on day 3 and was highly predictive of fatal outcome (0.90) at day 6. Area under ROC curve of SOFA score was 0.85 on day 3 and remained in this range until day 6. Area under ROC curves on day 3 of CRP (0.61) was non-predictive and remained non-predictive over the duration of ICU stay.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  PCT exhibited no discriminative power early after ICU admission for prediction of mortality in critically ill patients with severe sepsis, compared with a high predictive power of SOFA score on day 3. However, using PCT could still serve as a useful complementary comparator for prediction of survival outcome using the SOFA score.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Graz Medical University, Graz, Austria. ashraf.dahaba@meduni-graz.at
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Dahaba
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hagara
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fall
authors.forename: P H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Rehak
authors.forename: W F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: List
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Metzler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002097:C-Reactive Protein / Q000378:metabolism; D002116:Calcitonin / Q000097:blood*; D015740:Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide; D003422:Critical Care; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009102:Multiple Organ Failure / Q000097:blood / Q000628:therapy; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000097:blood* / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis; D011498:Protein Precursors / Q000097:blood*; D012372:ROC Curve; D018805:Sepsis / Q000097:blood* / Q000382:microbiology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016019:Survival Analysis
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; C000606589:CALCA protein, human; D011498:Protein Precursors; D002116:Calcitonin; D002097:C-Reactive Protein; D015740:Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide