{"doi":"10.1016/j.plabm.2024.e00391","title":"Correlation between locally versus centrally processed serum procalcitonin during emergency department research evaluation of febrile infants aged 0–60 days","abstract":"Introduction: Procalcitonin (PCT) is a useful biomarker in the initial evaluation of febrile infants for serious bacterial infections (SBIs). However, PCT is not always available locally and must at times be frozen and shipped to a reference laboratory for research studies. We sought to compare PCT measured locally versus centrally at a reference laboratory during a research study. Materials and methods: This was a secondary analysis of a multicenter study of febrile infants ≤60 days evaluated for SBIs from June 2016 to April 2019. A PCT cutoff value of 0.5 ng/mL was used to stratify infants at low-versus high-risk of SBIs. Statistical analyses consisted of Spearman's correlation, Bland-Altman difference plotting, Passing-Bablok regression, Deming regression, and Fisher's exact testing at the 0.5 ng/mL threshold. Results: 241 febrile infants had PCT levels measured both locally and at the reference laboratory. PCT levels measured locally on 5 different platforms and from the frozen research samples demonstrated strong Spearman's correlation (ρ = 0.83) and had similar mean PCT values with an average relative difference of 0.02%. Eleven infants with SBIs had PCT values < 0.5 ng/mL in both the clinical and research samples. Six other infants had differences in SBI prediction based on PCT values at the 0.5 ng/mL threshold between the clinical and research platforms. Conclusions: We found no significant differences in detection of febrile infants at high risk for SBI based on locally (on multiple platforms) versus centrally processed PCT. Testing at a central reference laboratory after freezing and shipping is an accurate and reliable alternative for research studies or when rapid turnaround is not required.","journal":"Practical Laboratory Medicine","year":2024,"id":495588,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9571,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":729998,"name":"Prashant Mahajan","orcid":"0000-0003-4278-3560","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":285984,"name":"Russell Banks","orcid":"0000-0003-1675-2584","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":445765,"name":"John M. VanBuren","orcid":"0000-0003-1350-5764","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":557444,"name":"Nam K. Tran","orcid":"0000-0003-1565-0025","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":33005,"name":"Octavio Ramilo","orcid":"0000-0002-0565-5239","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":37981,"name":"Nathan Kuppermann","orcid":"0000-0002-7854-4943","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":960650,"name":"Cosby G. Arnold","orcid":"0000-0002-8109-0460","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":15,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:09:19.627139Z","pmid":"38715662","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}