NCT01494675

Procalcitonin as a Tool to Shorten Antibiotic Therapy in the ICU

Clinical Impact of Procalcitonin to Shorten Antimicrobial Therapy in Septic Patients With Proven Bacterial Infection in an Intensive Care Setting

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 81 (actual)
• Sponsor: Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Recently, biomarkers like procalcitonin have been studied in order to help physicians to decrease the duration of the antibiotic therapy. The investigators objective was to assess whether the decrease in procalcitonin levels could be used to reduce the antibiotic therapy in critically ill patients with a proven infection without risking a worse outcome.

Conditions

• Sepsis

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	procalcitonin measurement	The patients assigned to the procalcitonin group had procalcitonin and C reactive protein levels measured at day 0 (bacteremia), 5 or 7 (if positive blood culture) and then every 48 hours until hosptital discharge, death or until the antibiotics were stopped. A predefined procalcitonin protocol was used together with the clinical outcome, to guide the physician´s decision to discontinue antibiotics. The procalcitonin protocol encouraged the physician to discontinue the antibiotics when: 1)procalcitonin dropped more than 90% from the baseline peak level or 2)an absolute value below 0,5ng/mL was reached. Cases in which the antibiotic treatment was continued against what the PCT values indicated were categorized as " antibiotic discontinuation overruling"

Timeline

• Start date: 2008-03-01
• Primary completion: 2010-02-01
• Completion: 2010-02-01
• First posted: 2011-12-19
• Last updated: 2011-12-19

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Brazil