English

Abstract

BACKGROUND Bacteraemia is a common cause of children presenting to the paediatric emergency with acute febrile illness. Blood cultures remain the gold standard for detection of bacteraemia but the positivity is low and also takes time to show positive results. A rapid and reliable biomarker like procalcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), total leucocyte count (TLC), and neutrophil-lymphocyte count ratio (NLCR) can be used to identify febrile children with greater risk for bacteraemia or serious bacterial infections. This would be very helpful to start early treatment of bacteraemia with antibiotics. METHODS The study was an observational cohort study conducted in the Department of Paediatrics of a tertiary care hospital in North India in children between age group 6 months to 12 years presenting with fever of > 100.4° F for 2 - 7 days. Blood samples were sent for PCT, CRP, TLC, NLCR and blood cultures. RESULTS The most sensitive biomarker was total leukocyte count (47.36 %) followed by the neutrophil percentage (26.32 %), C-reactive protein (21.05 %), and procalcitonin (15.79 %). The most specific biomarker was procalcitonin (75.14 %) followed by C-reactive protein (58.56 %), neutrophil percentage (22.65 %) and total leukocyte count (11.05 %). The only biomarker that was statistically significant between the bacteraemia and non-bacteraemia group in the present study was total leukocyte count (P – value < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The sensitivity and specificity of each single biomarker is low and hence these cannot be used singly to predict bacteraemia. There should be a combination of biomarkers with adequate sensitivity and specificity that can be used to create an algorithm to aid in diagnosis and prognostication. KEYWORDS Procalcitonin, C-Reactive Protein, Blood Culture, Acute Febrile Patient