Bacterial infections in the elderly are deadly if late detected. Several age-related immunological changes make this population more prone to infection and have atypical presentation when infected. Biomarkers are commonly used to aid in the diagnosis of bacterial infection in the elderly given their subtle clinical presentation. However, traditional biomarkers such as leukocyte, Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR), and C-Reactive Protein (CRP) lack specificity and some biomarkers levels are influenced by medication use. Procalcitonin, a preprocalcitonin derivative, is found to be elevated in the presence of bacterial infection and not affected by immunosuppressive drugs. Procalcitonin is a promising marker for detecting bacterial infection in the elderly. This review tries to describe the rationale and value of procalcitonin to diagnose and prognosticate bacterial infection in the elderly.
Key words: Procalcitonin, Elderly, Bacterial Infection, Diagnostic
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