Serum procalcitonin as an early indicator for bone and joint infection

Acute bone and joint infection is a common entity in Orthopaedics and very few studies have investigated role of Procalcitoninin the diagnosis of bone and joint infections. In our study the aim was to evaluate role of Serum Procalcitonin as an Early Indicator towards Bone and Joint Infections and to show sensitivity and specificity of Serum procalcitonin in diagnosis of bone and joint infection and to compare the sensitivity of Serum Procalcitonin with other biomarkers of bone and joint infection.

This was a prospective study conducted in the Dept. of Orthopaedics, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences from the period of August 2013 to August 2015. All the patient attending outdoor, indoor and emergency were clinically screened for bone and joint infection. The patient who showed clinical signs of bone and joint infection were recruited for this study.

Thirty-three patients were admitted between August 2013 to August 2015 in whom clinical suspicion of musculoskeletal infections was made. The youngest patient was 1 month old and oldest 76 years old. The mean age was 25.42 years. Out of 33 patients 17 were males and 16 females.21 patients had CRP positive whereas 12 patients were CRP negative. Out of 33 patients 16 finally had infection whereas 17 did not have infection. Infection in patients was determined by criteria, which was decided. The sensitivity of procalcitonin was found to be 56.3% whereas the specificity of procalcitonin was found to be 82.4%.

Serum Procalcitonin has high sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of Septic Arthritis and Acute Osteomyelitis ascompared to traditional biochemical markers.