The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
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Multicenter Study
Signs and symptoms for diagnosis of serious infections in children: a prospective study in primary care.
Serious infections in children (sepsis, meningitis, pneumonia, pyelonephritis, osteomyelitis, and cellulitis) are associated with considerable mortality and morbidity. In children with an acute illness, the primary care physician uses signs and symptoms to assess the probability of a serious infection and decide on further management. ⋯ Some individual signs have high specificity. A serious infection can be excluded based on a limited number of signs and symptoms.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Procalcitonin versus C-reactive protein for predicting pneumonia in adults with lower respiratory tract infection in primary care.
The role of procalcitonin in diagnosing bacterial infection has mainly been studied in patients with severe infections. There is no study on the value of procalcitonin measurements in adults with lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) treated in primary care. ⋯ Both procalcitonin >0.06 ng/ml and CRP > or =20 mg/l were associated with radiographic pneumonia, bacterial infection, and subsequent hospitalisation, but positive predictive values were too low for any of the two inflammatory markers to be of use in clinical practice. To measure procalcitonin values accurately in the primary care setting, a more sensitive method is needed, but there was no indication that procalcitonin is superior to CRP in identifying patients with pneumonia, bacterial aetiology, or adverse outcome.