@article{Lo Buglio_Bellanti_Talia_Romano_Serviddio_Vendemiale_2016, title={Reliability of serum procalcitonin concentration for the diagnosis of sepsis in elderly patient with chronic kidney disease}, volume={64}, url={https://www.jgerontology-geriatrics.com/article/view/176}, abstractNote={<p><strong>Background and aims.</strong> Sepsis is complicated by high mortality in hospitalized patients. Procalcitonin (PCT)<br>is a validated tool in the diagnosis of sepsis in both adults and aged patients. Several studies demonstrated<br>the reliability of PCT in adults with chronic kidney disease (CKD), but this has not been studied in the geriatric<br>population. Thus, we aimed at evaluating the reliability of PCT in a group of elderly patients with CKD.<br><strong>Methods</strong>. 382 subjects (mean age, 78.9 years) were consecutively enrolled and stratified in two groups at the<br>time of the admission based on the absence or presence of CKD, defined as estimated Glomerular Filtration<br>Rate (e-GFR) less than 60 ml/min/1.73 m2. These two groups were further divided according to the presence<br>(SEPSIS/NO CKD, n = 41; SEPSIS/CKD, n = 45) or absence of sepsis (NO SEPSIS/NO CKD, n = 147; NO SEPSIS/<br>CKD, n = 149), and the serum PCT was analyzed.<br><strong>Results</strong>. PCT was highly sensitive and specific in patients presenting with sepsis and no CKD. The mean<br>serum PCT concentration in the group SEPSIS/CKD was significantly higher than in NO SEPSIS/CKD (21.00<br>[5.83 to 97.00] ng/ml vs 0.90 [0.24 to 1.32] ng/ml, p &lt; 0.001). However, the PCT threshold value was 1.7 ng/ml<br>(sensitivity 91.1%, specificity 88.6%) as compared with the currently used threshold value of 0.5 ng/ml (sensitivity 93.3%, specificity 30.2% in our population study).<br><strong>Conclusions</strong>. Our study confirms the diagnostic reliability of PCT for the diagnosis of sepsis in elderly patients<br>with CKD. Nevertheless, we suggest to apply a cut-off of 1.7 ng/ml in this population.</p&gt;}, number={2}, journal={JOURNAL OF GERONTOLOGY AND GERIATRICS}, author={Lo Buglio, A. and Bellanti, F. and Talia, M. and Romano, A.D. and Serviddio, G. and Vendemiale, G.}, year={2016}, month={Jun.}, pages={49-54} }