St.Emlyn's
St. Emlyn´s - April 21, 2017 - By Chris Gray
"At work the other day, someone mentioned that we could use procalcitonin to distinguish between viral and bacterial infections, particularly in the paediatric population. It was touted as the answer to that age-old question, “should I prescribe antibiotics for this sore throat/cough/[insert other symptom here]?”. Now, the ED wasn’t the first place I’d heard about this strange test. A year ago, on an intensive care rotation, they were regularly using procalcitonin levels to make decisions on when antibiotics should be stopped. It’s not a test that I’ve seen used since then though, certainly no surgical registrar has insisted on a procalcitonin level before they’ll see my patient with right iliac fossa tenderness, and I’ve not had any complaints from the medics or paediatricians that it hasn’t been added to the routine bloods. It’s definitely not become the new CRP (yet)!
But what is procalcitonin, and should we be using it more? Is it the miracle test that’s going to bring an end to those viral/bacterial conundrums? Is it just another fad that we’ll all use for a few years before replacing it with something else?..."
