Comparison Between PCO2 Gap, Lactate and Procalcitonin as Predictors of Clinical Outcome in ICU Septic Patients

In the community setting, sepsis often presents as the clinical deterioration of common and preventable infections. Sepsis also frequently results from infections acquired in health care settings, which are one of the most frequent adverse events during care delivery and affect hundreds of millions of patients worldwide every year The venous-to-arterial carbon dioxide difference (Pv-aCO2) can indicate the adequacy of microvascular blood flow in the early phases of resuscitation in sepsis. Hence, other resuscitation goals, such as PCO2 gap, have been suggested, due to their ability to predict adverse clinical outcomes and simplicity in patients achieving normal oxygen-derived parameters during the early phases of resuscitation in septic shock.

Blood lactate level is also useful in evaluating sepsis. Serum lactate is a good indicator of the presence of hypoxic tissue during septic shock, since its production takes place during Anerobic metabolism.

Procalcitonin (PCT) is the precursor of calcitonin, and higher levels are associated with the development of sepsis. Com¬monly, there is an elevation of PCT levels 4 h after the on¬set of symptoms, peaking between 8 h and 24 h.