Impact of Procalcitonin on the Management of Children Aged 1 to 36 Month Presenting With a Fever Without a Source

St. Justine's Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Procalcitonin; Bacteremia; Bacterial Infection; Fever Without Source

Treatments: Other: Procalcitonin dosage PCT-Q test (Brahms, Germany)

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00692848

URG73

Details and patient eligibility

About

Serious bacterial infections are often difficult to detect in children with fever without source. Procalcitonin is a better blood marker of infection than White blood cell count and possibly than C-reactive protein. This could lead to a reduction in antibiotic prescription. Our objective is to evaluate the impact of Procalcitonin result on antibiotic prescription in children 1 to 36 month old with fever without source and our hypothesis is that it will lower the antibiotic prescription rate

Enrollment: 384 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 1 to 36 months old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Children 1-36 months
• With rectal temperature >38.0 C
• And no identified source of infection after history and physical examination

Exclusion criteria

• acquired or congenital immunodeficiency

Trial design

Primary purpose: Diagnostic

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Quadruple Blind

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384 participants in 2 patient groups

PCT+

Experimental group

Description:

Investigations include CBC, blood culture, urine analysis and culture and procalcitonin. In this arm procalcitonin result is revealed to the attending physician. The decision to treat with antibiotics or to hospitalize was left to him

Treatment:

Other: Procalcitonin dosage PCT-Q test (Brahms, Germany)

PCT-

No Intervention group

Description:

Investigations include CBC, blood culture, urine analysis and culture and procalcitonin. In this arm, procalcitonin is not revealed to the attending physician. The decision to treat with antibiotics or to hospitalize was left to him.