Meta-analysis of the diagnostic value of procalcitonin in adult burn sepsis

Sepsis is one of the main causes of death in burn patients, and many studies have suggested that procalcitonin (PCT) is a biomarker for the early diagnosis of sepsis, but the results are controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of serum PCT in adult burn sepsis by conducting a meta-analysis of published studies. The PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CNKI and China Wanfang databases were searched, and studies on PCT as a marker for the diagnosis of adult burn sepsis from the establishment of the database, to February 1, 2020 were screened. The data were analyzed using Stata v. 15.0 software. A total of 10 studies and 704 patients were included. The combined sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR) and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were 0.67 (95% CI: 0.48-0.81), 0.87 (95% CI: 0.72-0.95), 5.20 (95% CI: 2.49-10.84), 0.38 (95% CI: 0.24-0.61) and 13.70 (95% CI: 5.72-32.82), respectively. The area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) was 0.85 (95% CI: 0.82-0.88), and the diagnostic threshold was the main source of heterogeneity. Results demonstrate that serum PCT may be used as a useful biomarker for the early diagnosis of burn sepsis in adults, and may be combined with other diagnostic indexes to further improve the sensitivity and specificity.