• Jingyi Zhao, Shufeng Zhang, Lei Zhang, Xianhui Dong, Jianhui Li, Ying Wang, and Yinhui Yao.
• Department of Functional Center, Chengde Medical College, Chengde 067000, China.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2017 Aug 1; 35 (8): 1166-1171.

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to assess the value of serum procalcitonin (PCT) levels as a diagnostic marker for septic arthritis (SA) via meta-analysis.MethodsWe searched PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library, as well as the reference lists of relevant articles, for studies published up to May 21, 2015 and did not impose language restrictions. We selected original studies reporting the usefulness of PCT or C-reactive protein (CRP) as a diagnostic marker for SA. We summarized test performance characteristics with the use of forest plots, hierarchical summary receiver operating characteristic curves, and bivariate random effects models. Prespecified subgroup analyses and meta-regression analyses were also performed.ResultsThis meta-analysis comprised 10 studies including 838 patients. The overall sensitivity of serum PCT levels for the diagnosis of SA in these studies was 0.54 (95% CI, 0.41-0.66), and the specificity of PCT was 0.95 (95% CI, 0.87-0.98). The positive likelihood ratio (LR) was 10.97 (95% CI, 4.65-25.89); the negative LR was 0.49 (95% CI, 0.38-0.62); and the area under ROC curve (AUROC) was 0.82 (95% CI, 0.78-0.85). Six studies also examined the usefulness of CRP levels as a marker for the diagnosis of SA. The sensitivity and specificity of CRP were 0.45 (95% CI, 0.35-0.55) and 0.079 (95% CI, 0.0.021-0.25), respectively, and the positive LR, negative LR and AUROC curve were 0.48 (95% CI, 0.39-0.61), 6.79 (95% CI, 2.04-23.81), and 0.30 (95% CI, 0.26-0.34), respectively.ConclusionPCT is more valuable than CRP for distinguishing SA from non-SA.Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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