In Critically Ill Patients, Serum Procalcitonin Is More Useful in Differentiating between Sepsis and SIRS than CRP, Il-6, or LBP
Table 1
Patient characteristics.
All
Sepsis
SIRS
Number
76
32
44
—
Age*
66 (56–78)
68 (56–78)
65 (54–75)
ns
APACHE IV score*
57 (44–78)
70 (51–106)
53 (41–63)
<.001
APACHE IV exp mort (median)
18%
25%
16%
<.001
Medical
35
17
18
—
Planned surgery
25
4
21
.002
Emergency surgery
16
11
5
—
Ventilated
51
24
27
ns
days on ventilator*
4 (2–8)
6.5 (3.2–11)
2 (2–6)
.018
Renal replacement therapy
10
9
1
.001
Source of sepsis:
gastrointestinal
—
17
—
—
pulmonary
—
8
—
—
other
—
7
—
—
ICU LOS***
3.3 (1.7–7.0)
6.4 (2.4–10.8)
2.7 (1.5–5.8)
.024
Hospital LOS***
14 (7–30)
23 (8–36)
12 (7–21)
.082
ICU mortality
7 (9%)
5 (16%)
2 (5%)
.099
Hospital mortality
14 (18%)
9 (28%)
5 (11%)
.063
*Median, interquartile range.
**For difference between sepsis and SIRS, Mann Whitney test for continuous variables and Chi square test for categorical variables.
***LOS: length of stay.
