Pilot Study Evaluating C-Reactive Protein Levels in the Assessment of Response to Treatment of Severe Bloodstream Infection

Abstract

We evaluated the usefulness of monitoring daily C-reactive protein (CRP) levels after initiation of antimicrobial therapy in 44 patients with bloodstream infection. The ratio of the CRP level during therapy to the level at the start of anti-microbial therapy (CRP ratio) was measured. A CRP ratio of 10.58 at day 4 of therapy was a marker of poor outcome (sensitivity, 0.89; specificity, 0.69). The recognition of a pat-tern of CRP-ratio response was useful in the prediction of individual clinical course. The diagnosis of bloodstream infection (BSI) is based on a combination of clinical, hematological, and microbiological cri-teria. Some biochemical markers of sepsis, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin, have proven to be useful in BSI diagnosis [1, 2]. Presently, the response of BSI to treatment is evaluated by assessment of resolution of the same criteri