The Impact of Treatment on Serum Level of Procalcitonin in Patients with Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Authors

1 Pulmonologist, Department of Internal Medicine (Pulmonary Division) Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran.

2 Pulmonologist, COPD Research Center, Ghaem Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran

3 Community Medicine Specialist , Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Department of Community Medicine, Ardabil, Iran.

4 Infectious Disease Specialist, Department of Infectious Disease, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran.

5 Community Medicine Specialist , Department of Community Medicine, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, , Ardabil, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction: About one third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis (TB) and each year, about 1.5 to 2 million people die from TB. Procalcitonin (PCT) is an inflammatory marker that its level has variable
Materials and Methods: This conducted on patients with pulmonary TB. Data were collected using a check list. The serum level of PCT was measured by ELISA test at the beginning and after six months of treatment. All data were analyzed using SPSS 16.
 
Results: There are some discussions in the utilization of PCT as a diagnostic marker in active pulmonary TB. The aim of this study was to compare serum PCT before and after treatment in patients with pulmonary TB.
Results: Forty-two patients with active pulmonary TB entered in this study. The mean age of the patients was 45.48 ± 12.54 years and 54.8% of them were male. Most of the patients (59.5 %) were rural inhabitants. There was a family history of TB in 26% of patients. The most common symptom (45.2%) was cough. Mean PCT prior to treatment was 1.25 ± 0.98 ng/ml. and 81% of the patients had PCT higher than 0.5 to 5. After treatment PCT level reduced significantly (P<0.001). The mean erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) before treatment were 45.88 ± 21.87 and 7.16 ± 3.98 respectively that were reduced significantly after treatment (P<0.001). Neutrophil counts before treatment was 6221 ± 3161 Cells per ml. and decreased statistically significant after treatment (P=0.01).
Conclusion: Our results showed that the PCT levels in pulmonary TB were high in active disease and reduced after treatment. PCT level may be used for follow-up as a discriminative marker between active and cured pulmonary TB and predict treatment response, although the PCT assay cannot be substituted for microbiological and pathological data.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Medicine
Volume 2, Issue 4 - Serial Number 4
November 2014
Pages 238-242

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