{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,2]],"date-time":"2025-11-02T06:09:09Z","timestamp":1762063749699,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,8,23]],"date-time":"2022-08-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1661212800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Antibiotics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Introduction: Procalcitonin is a marker for bacterial diseases and has been used to guide antibiotic prescription. Procalcitonin accuracy, measured at admission, in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), is unknown in the current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Objectives: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin to assess the need for antibiotic treatment in patients with CAP presenting to the emergency department during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Methods: We performed a real-world diagnostic retrospective accuracy study of procalcitonin in patients admitted to the emergency department. Measures of diagnostic accuracy were calculated based on procalcitonin results compared to the reference standard of combined microbiological and radiological analysis. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and area under (AUC) the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve were calculated in two analyses: first assessing procalcitonin ability to differentiate microbiologically proven bacteria from viral CAP and then clinically diagnosed bacterial CAP from viral CAP. Results: When using a procalcitonin threshold of 0.5 ng\/mL to identify bacterial etiology within patients with CAP, we observed sensitivity and specificity of 50% and 64.1%, and 43% and 82.6%, respectively, in the two analyses. The positive and negative predictive values of a procalcitonin threshold of 0.5 ng\/mL to identify patients for whom antibiotics should be advised were 46.4% and 79.7%, and 48.9% and 79% in the two analyses, respectively. The AUC for the two analyses was 0.60 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.52\u20130.68) and 0.62 (95% CI, 0.55\u20130.69). Conclusions: Procalcitonin measured upon admission during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic should not guide antibiotic treatment in patients with CAP.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/antibiotics11091141","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,8,23]],"date-time":"2022-08-23T21:05:12Z","timestamp":1661288712000},"page":"1141","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Diagnostic Accuracy of Procalcitonin upon Emergency Department Admission during SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3840-0491","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Stefano","family":"Malinverni","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Emergency Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9878-8681","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Silvia","family":"Lazzaroni","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Emergency Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ma\u00efa","family":"Nu\u0148ez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Brugmann, Place A.Van Gehuchten 4, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, 1020 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0194-3417","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thierry","family":"Preseau","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Brugmann, Place A.Van Gehuchten 4, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, 1020 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric","family":"Cotton","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Clinical Chemistry, Laboratoire Hospitalier Universitaire de Bruxelles-Universitair Laboratorium Brussel (LHUB-ULB), Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Delphine","family":"Martiny","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, Laboratoire Hospitalier Universitaire de Bruxelles-Universitair Laboratorium Brussel (LHUB-ULB), Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9799-3173","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fatima","family":"Bouazza","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Emergency Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4427-0745","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Vincent","family":"Collot","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Emergency Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1214-9289","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Deborah","family":"Konopnicki","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Infectious Diseases Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"St\u00e9phane","family":"Alard","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Radiology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Magali","family":"Bartiaux","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Emergency Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint-Pierre, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, Rue Haute 322, 1000 Brussels, Belgium"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,8,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1708","DOI":"10.1056\/NEJMoa2002032","article-title":"Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China","volume":"382","author":"Guan","year":"2020","journal-title":"N. 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