%0 Journal Article
%T Procalcitonin as a biomarker for severe Plasmodium falciparum disease: a critical appraisal of a semi-quantitative point-of-care test in a cohort of travellers with imported malaria
%A Dennis A Hesselink
%A Jan-Steven Burgerhart
%A Hanna Bosmans-Timmerarends
%A Pieter Petit
%A Perry JJ van Genderen
%J Malaria Journal
%D 2009
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1475-2875-8-206
%X In all patients, PCT was measured on admission with a semi-quantitative 'point-of-care' test. Patients with severe P. falciparum malaria had significantly higher median PCT levels on admission as compared with patients with uncomplicated P. falciparum disease. In addition, PCT levels in patients with non-falciparum malaria were also higher compared with patients with non-severe falciparum malaria but lower compared with severe P. falciparum malaria. At a cut-off point of 10 ng/mL, PCT had a sensitivity of 0,67 and a specificity of 0,94 for severe falciparum disease. However, at lower cut-off points the specificity and positive predictive value were rather poor although the sensitivity and negative predictive value remained high.Potential drawbacks in the interpretation of elevated PCT levels on admission may be caused by infections with non-falciparum species and by concomitant bacterial infections.Semi-quantitative determination of PCT on admission is of limited use in the initial clinical assessment of disease severity in travellers with imported malaria, especially in settings with limited experience with the treatment of malaria.Imported malaria occurs as a relatively rare event in developed countries. As a consequence, most clinicians have little experience in making clinical assessments of disease severity and decisions regarding the need for parenteral therapy or high-level monitoring. In addition, obtaining a correct diagnosis of malaria may be troublesome in centres where laboratory staff are less skilled in preparing malaria thick and thin smears and in the proper identification of the causative Plasmodium species and quantification of the parasite load [1]. These centres usually rely on rapid diagnostic tests for the diagnosis of malaria. However, these tests do not provide any information about the severity of the infection, which is mandatory for evaluation of Plasmodium falciparum infections. Therefore, well-validated, simple, laboratory-based prognost
%U http://www.malariajournal.com/content/8/1/206