Procalcitonin for Diagnostics and Treatment Decisions in Pediatric Lower Respiratory Tract Infections.

摘要: Mortality and morbidity remain high in pediatric lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) despite progress research implementation of global diagnostic treatment strategies the last decade. Still, 120 million annual episodes pneumonia affect children younger than 5 years each year leading to 1.3 fatalities with major burden disease carried by low- middle-income countries (95%). The definition is still challenging. Traditional measures (i.e., chest radiographs, C-reactive protein) are unable distinguish viral from bacterial etiology. As a result, common antibiotic overuse contributes growing resistance. We present an overview current evidence observational randomized controlled trials on procalcitonin (PCT)-based diagnosis LRTIs discuss need for adequate PCT threshold decision-making.