Procalcitonin-reduced sensitivity and specificity in heavily leucopenic and immunosuppressed patients

Procalcitonin (PCT) has proven to be a very sensitive marker of sepsis for non-leucopenic patients. Little is known about its relevance in immunosuppressed and leucopenic adults. Four hundred and seventy-five PCT determinations were carried out in 73 haematological patients: on 221 occasions the white blood cell (WBC) count was < 1.0 x 10(9)/l and on 239 occasions it was > 1.0 x 10(9)/l leucocytes. Patients were classified as: non-systemic infected controls (n = 280), patients with bacteraemia (n = 32), sepsis (n = 30), severe sepsis (n = 3), septic shock (n = 3) and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) (n = 62). When the WBC count was > 1.0 x 10(9)/l, gram-negative bacteria induced higher PCT levels (median 9.4 ng/ml) than gram-positives (median 1.4 ng/ml). In cases with a WBC < 1.0 x 10(9)/l, PCT levels were similar for gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria (1.1 ng/ml versus 0.85 ng/ml). Regardless of the leucocyte count, the median PCT level in bacteraemia cases always remained < 0.5 ng/ml. In heavily leucopenic situations, PCT levels were never > 2 ng/ml even in the sepsis and severe sepsis/septic shock groups, whereas a WBC count > 1.0 x 10(9)/l resulted in median PCT values of 4.1 ng/ml and 45 ng/ml respectively. The positive predictive value for sepsis (cut-off 2 ng/ml) was 93% in cases of WBC count > 1.0 x 10(9)/l, but only 66% in leucopenic conditions. The negative predictive value (cut-off 0.5 ng/ml) was 90% when the WBC count was > 1.0 x 10(9)/l and 63% in leucopenic conditions. Procalcitonin is an excellent sepsis marker with a high positive- and negative-predictive value in patients with WBC count > 1.0 x 10(9)/l, but it does not work satisfactorily below this leucocyte count.