Procalcitonin to guide antibiotic stewardship in intensive care

The usefulness of PCT trends in guiding the duration of antibiotic therapy in septic episodes is limited since it doesn’t take into account some aspects that can affect the PCT levels. In particular: 1) both the aetiology (Gram positive and Gram negative rods, fungi, parasites) and antibiotics prescribed for septic episodes (bactericidal/fungicidal vs bacteriostatic/fungistatic drugs) are not specified. 2) the surgical “source control” of septic episode (e.g. intra-abdominal infections) is not mentioned The lack of an infectious disease specialist in data processing team composed of an intensivist, a statistician and a pulmonologist, could explain the restricted classification of prevalent infections.