The value of PCT in differential diagnosis of infectious pneumonia

Objective To explore the value of procalcitonin(PCT) in differential diagnosis of infectious pneumonia.Methods The concentrations of PCT in sera from 80 bacterial pneumonia cases,70 Mycoplasmal pneumonia cases,65 viral pneumonia cases and 50 normal(control group) serum samples.The detection of PCT was detected by chemiluminescence Enzymeimmunoassay.Results The concentrations and positive rate of PCT of bacterial pneumonia group was significantly higher than that of mycoplasmal pneumonia group,viral pneumonia group and control group.The difference was statistically significant(F=34.732,χ2=173.210,P0.05).The serum PCT concentrations and positive rate of mycoplasma pneumonia group,viral pneumonia group and control group had no significant differences(F=1.847,χ2=0.278,P0.05).The positive rate of PCT had no significant difference between male and female in the bacterial pneumonia(χ2=0.356,P0.05).The positive rate of PCT from the age of 35 days to 81 years old had no significant difference in the bacterial pneumonia(χ2=0.01,P0.05).Conclusions The positive rate of PCT in bacterial pneumonia is not affected by gender,ages.PCT could be used for differential diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia in the infectious pneumonia.But it is not a good index to distinguish the mycoplasmal pneumonia from viral pneumonia.