Advances and Pitfalls in Using Laboratory Biomarkers for the Diagnosis and Management of Sepsis

Sepsis is a critical patient condition with high mortality rate caused by a complex and inadequate host response to infection. Since early identification and start of antibiotic therapy in the first few hours after sepsis development dramatically improves outcomes, it is of utter importance to offer fast, reliable and specific early laboratory biomarkers to help clinicians in sepsis recognition. On the other hand, the biomarkers should also be helpful in excluding sepsis and/or confirming therapy effectiveness, and thus prevent overprescribing of antibiotics. In this paper, we discuss the significance and relative merits of three currently available protein biomarkers: C-reactive protein, procalcitonin and presepsin. Although useful, none of these biomarkers has been shown to completely fulfill the roles mentioned above.