Abstract
Objectives: Examining the usefulness of C-reactive protein velocity (CRPv) as an early biomarker for the presence of bacteraemia in patients presenting to the Department of Emergency Medicine with acute infection/inflammation and suspected bacteraemia. Methods: A retrospective study examining a cohort of patients who presented to the E.R and in whom blood cultures were taken. CRPv was calculated as the difference in mg/hour/litter between two consecutive CRP tests performed within 12 h. Results: 256 patients were included in the cohort. Using CRPv in patients who at first presented with a relatively low (17.9 ≤ mg/L 1st quartile) CRP concentration, we found an AUC of 0.808 ± 0.038 (p < 0.001) for the presence of positive versus negative blood cultures (what is AUC?). This was better than the AUC that was obtained when the WBC for the same purpose. Conclusions: CRPv may be a useful biomarker in the identification of patients with suspected bacteremia and a low CRP-a challenging situation for clinicians who may underestimate the severity of illness in this patient group.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 117451 |
Journal | Clinica Chimica Acta |
Volume | 547 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jul 2023 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023
Funding
This work was supported in part by the Dalia and Arye Pershkovsky grant for biomedical research.
Funders | Funder number |
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Dalia and Arye Pershkovsky |
Keywords
- Bacteremia
- CRP
- CRPv
- Sepsis
- WBC