Open AccessProcalcitonin is a strong predictor of urine culture results in patients with obstructing ureteral stones: A prospective, pilot study
Author(s) -
Dimitri Papagiannopoulos,
Patrick Whelan,
Waseem Ahmad,
James Rybak,
Bala Hota,
Leslie A. Deane,
Ajay Nehra
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
urology annals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.355
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 0974-7834
pISSN - 0974-7796
DOI - 10.4103/0974-7796.184877
Subject(s) - medicine , urinalysis , procalcitonin , urine , white blood cell , prospective cohort study , urinary system , gold standard (test) , receiver operating characteristic , concomitant , area under the curve , emergency department , gastroenterology , urology , surgery , sepsis , psychiatry
The appropriate management of infected obstructing ureteral calculi is prompt genitourinary decompression. Urine cultures are the gold standard for confirming infection but often take 24-48 h to result. Although white blood cell (WBC) count is an important diagnostic laboratory test, it is a nonspecific inflammatory marker. Similarly, urinalysis (UA) can be misleading in the setting of a contaminated sample, bladder colonization, or in cases of a completely obstructed the upper urinary tract. Procalcitonin (PCT) has shown promise in predicting the presence and degree of bacterial infections. In this proof-of-concept study, we explore whether PCT is effective at predicting concomitant infections in the setting of obstructing ureteral stones.