Procalcitonin as predictor of outcome in community acquired pneumonia patients

BACKGROUND: Community acquired pneumonia is a respiratory disease that often occurs and can cause serious impacts on health with varying degrees of severity. Patient management from the moment they are admitted to the hospital greatly determines the development of community-acquired pneumonia, so this research was conducted to determine the predictive value of procalcitonin levels on the severity and outcome of community-acquired pneumonia patients.METHODS: A retrospective cohort study of community-acquired pneumonia patients hospitalized at RSUP Dr. Wahidin Sudirohusodo from January to September 2023. Patient characteristics and clinical data were collected from inpatient medical records retrospectively. Data analysis used the Kaplan Meier survival curve and Youden Index to determine predictors of severity and outcome in community-acquired pneumonia patients.RESULTS: A total of 341 community-acquired pneumonia patients were analyzed in this study. The results showed that there was a significant difference, patients with high levels of procalcitonin had a significantly shorter survival time compared to patients with low procalcitonin values. The results of the ROC curve analysis showed that the procalcitonin variable was the best in predicting mortality with an AUC value of 0.763. After that, there is the CRP variable with an AUC of 0.658. Lastly, namely NLR with an AUC of 0.501.CONCLUSIONS: Procalcitonin can be used as predictors of severity and outcome in community-acquired pneumonia patients.