• Erdinc Cakir, Omer Deniz, Omer Ozcan, Ergun Tozkoparan, Halil Yaman, Emin Ozgur Akgul, Cumhur Bilgi, Hayati Bilgic, Kudret Ekiz, and Mehmet Kemal Erbil.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Laboratory of Biochemistry, Gulhane School of Medicine, Etlik, Ankara 06010, Turkey. erdcakir@yahoo.com
• Clin. Biochem. 2005 Mar 1; 38 (3): 234-8.

BackgroundDiagnosis of tuberculous pleuritis is difficult because of its nonspecific clinical presentation and decreased efficiency of traditional diagnostic methods. We investigated the use of procalcitonin (PCT) concentration in tuberculous pleuritis diagnosis.MethodsA prospective clinical study was performed with two different patient groups. A total of 28 patients were included: 18 with tuberculosis and 10 with nontuberculous pleurisy. Serum and pleural fluid PCT concentrations were evaluated before treatment.ResultsSerum and pleural fluid PCT concentrations were statistically different between tuberculous and nontuberculous pleurisy groups (P = 0.012 and P = 0.004, respectively), even though they were not elevated in relation to the cut-off level of 0.5 ng/mL. A positive and significant correlation was detected between serum and pleural fluid PCT levels (r = 0.49, P = 0.008). Diagnostic specificity and sensitivity values for serum and pleural fluid PCT in discriminating tuberculous from nontuberculous pleurisy were 80% and 72.2%, and 90% and 66.7% at the 0.081 and 0.113 ng/mL cut-off values, respectively.ConclusionRelative to the current cut-off level of 0.5 ng/mL, PCT concentration is not a useful parameter for the diagnosis of tuberculous pleurisy. Because there were PCT levels in patients with tuberculous pleurisy that were below the current cut-off level but were significantly different from those of the nontuberculous group, the use of PCT should be further investigated.

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