Can procalcitonin tests aid in identifying bacterial infections associated with influenza pneumonia? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To summarize evidence for the diagnostic accuracy of procalcitonin (PCT) tests for identifying secondary bacterial infections in patients with influenza.

METHODS: Major databases, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library, were searched for studies published between January 1966 and May 2009 that evaluated PCT as a marker for diagnosing bacterial infections in patients with influenza infections and that provided sufficient data to construct two-by-two tables.

RESULTS: Six studies were selected that included 137 cases with bacterial coinfection and 381 cases without coinfection. The area under a summary ROC curve was 0·68 (95% CI: 0·64-0·72). The overall sensitivity and specificity estimates for PCT tests were 0·84 (95% CI: 0·75-0·90) and 0·64 (95% CI: 0·58-0·69), respectively. These studies reported heterogeneous sensitivity estimates ranging from 0·74 to 1·0. The positive likelihood ratio for PCT (LR+ = 2·31; 95% CI: 1·93-2·78) was not sufficiently high for its use as a rule-in diagnostic tool, while its negative likelihood ratio was reasonably low for its use as a rule-out diagnostic tool (LR- = 0·26; 95% CI: 0·17-0·40).

CONCLUSIONS: Procalcitonin tests have a high sensitivity, particularly for ICU patients, but a low specificity for identifying secondary bacterial infections among patients with influenza. Because of its suboptimal positive likelihood ratio and good negative likelihood ratio, it can be used as a suitable rule-out test but cannot be used as a standalone rule-in test.