The Activity of Infective Endocarditis Was Correlated to the Procalcitonin Value

Abstract

An 89-year-old woman was introduced and followed up at our hospital office after being treated by antibiotics including ampicillin (ABPC) against infective endocarditis (IE) in another hospital. Although her CRP was in the negative range at first, her procalcitonin (PCT) was slightly positive in her blood exam. Then, she had a recurrence with high fever 1 week after the ABPC medication was stopped, and the patient was admitted into our hospital. Immediately, we started to administrate some antibiotics based on a result of blood culture of bacteria. Finally, both the CRP and the PCT showed negative 28 days after the beginning of the treatment. The feverish state was not observed even after the medication was finished. In the second case, a 77-year-old man with high fever was admitted in our hospital and diagnosed with IE by transesophageal echocardiography. The antibiotic therapy was started and the fever was gradually declined. The only CRP became negative 14 days after the beginning of the medication. Finally both the CRP and the PCT was completely negative at 21 days. It is possible that the PCT should be an appropriate marker for the treatment of IE compared to CRP.




J Med Cases. 2015;6(5):183-184
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jmc2091w