Importance of procalcitonin in post-cardiosurgical patients

Procalcitonin (PCT) is a sensitive and specific inflammation marker, which can be used to detect both inflammatory infections and noninflammatory complications in postsurgical monitoring of patients after cardiac surgery using extracorporeal circulation. The optimum cut-off value for PCT levels, as a predictor of postoperative complications, appears to be 1.2 ng/mL with a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 90%. PCT may be used to monitor response to therapy because blood concentrations increase in an inflammatory disease relapse. Other studies have shown (and we con-cur) that C-reactive protein (CRP) and white blood cell (WBC) levels can vary widely depending on the cardiac surgery or procedure performed. Whereas CRP concentrations do increase markedly during the postoperative period, they tend to remain elevated regardless of the type of surgery thus making CRP a poor predictor of complications, unlike PCT, which has been shown to be a far better predictor especially in the case of cardiac surgeries.