European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Introduction: Diagnosis and treatment of sepsis poses a challenge for health care providers at clinical setup. Identifying sepsis and making rational decision regarding the treatment plan is crucial to the overall survival and recovery of the affected patients. Serum procalcitonin (PCT) is an emerging biomarker for diagnosing sepsis worldwide. But serum PCT data for diagnosing sepsis from our country perspective is scarce. Present study aims to evaluate the relation between serum PCT level and the clinical state of the sepsis among Bangladeshi patients. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 61 clinically diagnosed patients with sepsis admitted at Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Apollo Hospital Dhaka aged 18 years or older. Data were collected from the respondents using a semi-structured questionnaire through a face to face interview. Results: Blood culture positive sepsis was found among 37.7% of the respondents. Escherichia Coli was the most commonly found organisms in blood culture. Meropenem was found to be sensitive antibiotics in most cases. Among the respondents around 2/3rd had serum PCT level ≥10 ng/ml and diagnosed as patients in septic shock. Mean serum procalcitonin level for respondents with culture positive bacterial sepsis was 22.60 ng/ml and for respondents without culture positive bacterial sepsis was 8.47 ng/ml and this difference was statistically significant (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The present study indicates that serum PCT level rises more among culture positive bacterial sepsis patients than patients without culture positive bacterial sepsis. In primary health care setup, serum PCT can be used as a tool for early diagnosing culture positive sepsis. A large scale, multicenter study should be under taken to further evaluate the viability and feasibility of using serum PCT as a biomarker for diagnosing culture positive sepsis.