The diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin and C‐reactive protein for sepsis: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

The objective of this study was to systematically evaluate the clinical value of procalcitonin and C‐reactive protein in the diagnosis of adult patients with sepsis.

PubMed, Cochrane, Embase, Wanfang, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and VIP database were searched by the index words to identify the qualified prospective studies, and relevant literature sources were also searched. The most recent research was done in the April 2017. The only languages included were English or Chinese. In the experiment group, patients were diagnosed with sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock; in the control group, the patients were of noninfectious origin or a systemic inflammatory response syndrome. The diagnostic accuracy was analyzed by heterogeneity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and the summary receiver‐operating characteristic curve.

At least nine studies were involved in the meta‐analysis with 495 patients in the sepsis group and 873 patients in the nonsepsis group. In terms of the diagnostic accuracy of C‐reactive protein (CRP) for sepsis, the overall area under the summary receiver operator characteristic (SROC) curve was 0.73 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.69‐0.77), with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.80 (95% CI, 0.63‐0.90) and 0.61 (95% CI, 0.50‐0.72) respectively, and the DOR was 6.89 (95% CI, 3.86‐12.31). In terms of the diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin (PCT) for sepsis, the overall area under the SROC curve was 0.85 (95% CI, 0.82‐0.88), with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.80 (95% CI, 0.69‐0.87) and 0.77 (95% CI, 0.60‐0.88) respectively, and the DOR was 12.50 (95% CI, 3.65‐42.80).

In this meta‐analysis, our results together indicate a moderate degree of value of PCT and CRP for the diagnosis of sepsis in adult patients. The diagnosis accuracy and specificity of PCT are higher than those of CRP.