Relationship between Procalcitonin Levels and Severity of DIC Induced by Bacterial Infection.

<Background and Methods> In the past few years, structural and functional studies have demonstrated an increasingly tight interplay between the coagulation and inflammatory systems. These studies support an important role of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) in the development of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) in these critically ill patients. Although PCT is important clinical marker, it role in the DIC process is unkown. We measured serum levels of PCT in septic patients with DIC (n=15) and acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL)-induced DIC (n=5). Serum levels of PCT were determined by the EIA (BIOMERIEMX, France).

<Results> The thrombin antithrombin complexes (TAT) levels were higher in both DIC patients as reported by others. ?Levels of PCT elevated in all patients with bacterial infection. In the septic patients with DIC, we found significant elevations of serum PCT levels (97.3±72.3 ng/ml) as compared with septic patients with non overt DIC (30.5±42.4 ng/ml). All the patients that levels of PCT increased than 100 ng/ml died. However, we did not find any difference serum levels of PCT in the APL and EB virus infected patients with DIC.

<Conclusion> These results suggest that assess of thrombin generation capacity may be helpful in the making the diagnosis in septic patients with DIC. It appears that serum levels of PCT may contribute to the severity of DIC induced bacterial infection.