Procalcitonin: A Key Marker in Children with Urinary Tract Infection

Table 2

Studies on diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin for late renal scars in children with urinary tract infection.

Study	City, country	𝑛	Delay for early DMSA scan	Results
Benador, 1998 [22]	Geneva, Switz.	80	3 months	Mean PCT values of 1.6 ± 0.6 mg/L in the totally reversible DMSA lesions versus 7.7 ± 3.0 mg/L in the partially reversible group (𝑃=.02).
Pecile, 2004 [16]	Udine, Italy	100	6 months	PCT levels for children with totally reversible lesions on followup scans (3.3 ± 3.5 ng/mL) versus those for children with renal scars (7.45 ± 8.4 ng/mL; 𝑃=.04).
Gürgöze, 2005 [18]	Firat, Turkey	76	6 months	Control DMSA scan performed showed that scar tissue developed in 4 cases (11%).
Tuerlinckx, 2005 [20]	Yvoir, Belgium	63	6 months	The median PCT level was not statistically different between children with totally and partially reversible lesion(s) (𝑃=.3).
Güven, 2006 [26]	Antalya, Turkey	33	3–6 months	On 19 followup scans, 13 (68%) showed complete resolution. On the 6-month scans, five of 21 patients (24%) had renal scars. No correlation with PCT levels was studied.
Karavanaki, 2007 [27]	Athens, Greece	58	6 months	PCT values (3.08 mg/L versus 5.3 mg/L; 𝑃=.05) were significantly lower in the group with totally reversible renal lesions.
Kotoula, 2009 [31]	Thrase, Greece	57	6 months	The PCT level was significantly greater in the patients with persistent renal lesions (median PCT level of 10.4 ng/mL, range 1.6–13.0) than in those with total regression (1.9 ng/mL, range 0.7–10.0; 𝑃=.005).
Bressan, 2009 [17]	Padova, Italy	72	12 months	Patients with persistent lesions had significantly higher PCT values (2.3 ng/mL, IQR: 1.0–11.6) than those without permanent renal lesions (0.5 ng/mL, IQR: 0.2–1.4; 𝑃=.007).

DMSA, Tc-99m dimercaptosuccinic acid scan; IQR, Interquartile range; PCT, Procalcitonin.