Comparison of C-reactive protein and procalcitonin as predictors of postoperative infectious complications after elective colorectal surgery.

Aim: To assess diagnostic value of perioperative procalcitonin (PCT) levels compared to C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in early detection of infectious complications following colorectal surgery.

Methods: This prospective observational study included 79 patients undergoing elective colorectal surgery. White blood cell count, CRP, and PCT were measured preoperatively and on postoperative days (POD) 1, 2, 3, 5, and patients were followed for postoperative complications. Diagnostic accuracy of CRP and PCT values on each day was analyzed by the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve, with infectious complications as an outcome measure. ROC curves with the largest area under the curve for each inflammatory marker were compared in order to define the marker with higher diagnostic accuracy.

Results: Twenty nine patients (36.7%) developed infectious complications. CRP and PCT concentrations increased in the early postoperative period, with a significant difference between patients with and without complications at all measured postoperative times. ROC curve analysis showed that CRP concentrations on POD 3 and PCT concentrations on POD 2 had similar predictive values for the development of infectious complications (area under the curve, 0.746 and 0.750, respectively) with the best cut-off values of 99.0 mg/L for CRP and 1.34 μg/L for PCT. Diagnostic accuracy of CRP and PCT was highest on POD 5, however the cut-off values were not considered clinically useful.

Conclusion: Serial postoperative PCT measurements do not offer an advantage over CRP measurements for prediction of infectious complications following colorectal surgery.