Abstract
Objective: evaluation of clinical use of serum calprotectin as biomarker of bacterial infection. Design: prospective, observational study.
Settings: Military University Hospital Prague. Material and Methods: all patients admitted to the Department of infectious Diseases during the period between January and March 2020 were enrolled to the study.
Serum calprotectin was analyzed using EVOLISTM Microplate system and commercially available assay from the Biovendor company. Results: Altogether, data of 36 enrolled patients with proven bacterial or viral infection (24 males and 12 females with mean age 63.9 years) were evaluated.
The most frequent source of bacterial infection was respiratory tract (33.3 %) followed by soft tissue (25 %) and infections of urogenital and gastrointestinal tracts (both 16.7 %). The most common viral infection was flu A (66.6 %).
Median of calprotectin serum concentration in bacterial infection was 4.12 mg/L in comparison to 2.03 mg/L in viral infection. In 12 patients with bacterial infection with negative procalcitonin (PCT) levels, both C-reactive protein (CRP) and calprotectin were elevated.
On the other hand, eight patients with proven bacterial infection had negative calprotectin serum levels. Four of these patients had elevated CRP and PCT and four CRP only.
In addition, in the cohort with bacterial infection, there was one patient with calprotectin elevation only.. Conclusion: the results of our study indicated serum calprotectin as additional parameter of bacterial infection.