The utility of proadrenomedullin and procalcitonin in comparison to C-reactive protein as predictors of sepsis and bloodstream infections in critically ill patients with cancer*.

Objectives: Infections in critically ill patients continue to impose diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. We seek to investigate the utility of proadrenomedullin and procalcitonin as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in febrile critically ill patients with cancer and compare their performance with that of C-reactive protein.

Design: Single-center prospective cohort study.

Pro-adrenomedullin as a novel biomarker for predicting infections and response to antimicrobials in febrile patients with hematologic malignancies.

Background: Health professionals and researchers have become increasingly interested in biomarkers that help them in diagnosis of infections with recent growing attention to procalcitonin (PCT) and pro-adrenomedullin (proADM).

Methods: This study compares proADM to PCT as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of infection in febrile patients with hematologic malignancies (HMs). From June 2009 to December 2010, 340 febrile HM patients were evaluated for presence of sepsis, systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), documented infections, and response to antimicrobial therapy.