Published ahead of print on December 20, 2007, doi:10.1164/rccm.200708-1238OC
© 2008 American Thoracic Society doi: 10.1164/rccm.200708-1238OC
Use of Procalcitonin to Shorten Antibiotic Treatment Duration in Septic PatientsA Randomized Trial1 Intensive Care, 2 Infection Control Program, 3 Central Chemistry Laboratory, and 4 Microbiology Laboratory, University Hospitals of Geneva, and Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Prof. Jérôme Pugin, M.D., Intensive Care, University Hospital of Geneva, 24, Micheli-du-Crest, 1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland. E-mail: jerome.pugin{at}medecine.unige.ch
Rationale: The duration of antibiotic therapy in critically ill patients with sepsis can result in antibiotic overuse, increasing the risk of developing bacterial resistance. Objectives: To test the hypothesis that an algorithm based on serial measurements of procalcitonin (PCT) allows reduction in the duration of antibiotic therapy compared with empirical rules, and does not result in more adverse outcomes in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock.
Methods: In patients randomly assigned to the intervention group, antibiotics were stopped when PCT levels had decreased 90% or more from the initial value (if clinicians agreed) but not before Day 3 (if baseline PCT levels were <1 µg/L) or Day 5 (if baseline PCT levels were Measurements and Main Results: Patients assigned to the PCT group had 3.5-day shorter median duration of antibiotic therapy for the first episode of infection than control subjects (intention-to-treat, n = 79, P = 0.15). In patients in whom a decision could be taken based on serial PCT measurements, PCT guidance resulted in a 4-day reduction in the duration of antibiotic therapy (per protocol, n = 68, P = 0.003) and a smaller overall antibiotic exposure (P = 0.0002). A similar mortality and recurrence of the primary infection were observed in PCT and control groups. A 2-day shorter intensive care unit stay was also observed in patients assigned to the PCT group (P = 0.03). Conclusions: Our results suggest that a protocol based on serial PCT measurement allows reducing antibiotic treatment duration and exposure in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock without apparent harm. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT 00250666).
Key Words: procalcitonin • sepsis • intensive care • antibiotics • controlled trial
The duration of antibiotic therapy in critically ill patients with sepsis is based on empirical rules (1). It can result in antibiotic overuse, increasing the risk of developing bacterial resistance (2) and treatment-related costs (3). Recent attempts to decrease the duration of the antibiotic therapy have been successful in critically ill patients (4). Patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia, for example, are equally well treated when they receive an 8-day treatment as compared with a 15-day course of antibiotics (5). This is, however, again based on empirical rules, and guidance of the duration of the antibiotic treatment customized for each patient and based on simple biomarkers could contribute an additional benefit. Procalcitonin (PCT) is a rather specific marker for severe bacterial infection in patients presenting with suspected sepsis (6–8). PCT has been used to guide the initiation of antibiotic treatment in patients presenting in the emergency department with respiratory infection (9). This marker is also a useful tool to shorten the duration of antibiotic therapy in patients hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia (10). In previous studies, we and others have shown that the dynamics of plasma PCT levels were markedly different between patients who died of sepsis compared with those who survived (7, 11). Despite a large body of literature in favor of this biomarker, there is still ongoing controversy about the clinical usefulness of PCT measurement in the critical care setting (12–14). The aim of the present study was to test whether a simple algorithm based on the daily evolution of plasma PCT levels would help clinicians to shorten the duration of antibiotic therapy in critically ill patients with suspected or documented severe sepsis and septic shock. We hypothesized that a PCT-guided antibiotic discontinuation strategy may enable reducing antibiotic treatment duration without harming patients' safety. Preliminary results from this study were presented during the 47th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Chicago, Illinois, September 2007 (15).
Study Design We conducted a randomized, controlled, open interventional trial involving patients with severe sepsis and septic shock hospitalized in our intensive care unit (ICU). In the PCT group, patients received antibiotics according to PCT guidance. In the control group, patients were treated according to standard practice. The study was approved by the ethics committee of University Hospitals of Geneva. Written, informed consent was obtained from all participants or a next of kin.
Study Setting and Subjects
The reasons for exclusion were as follows: (1) microbiologically documented infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumanni, Listeria spp., Legionella pneumophila, Pneumocystis jiroveci, or Mycobacterium tuberculosis, for which a prolonged duration of antibiotic therapy is standard-of-care (17); (2) severe infections due to viruses or parasites (e.g., hemorrhagic fever, malaria); (3) infectious conditions requiring prolonged antibiotic therapy (e.g., bacterial endocarditis, brain abscess, deep abscesses); (4) antibiotic therapy started 48 hours or more before enrollment; (5) chronic, localized infections (e.g., chronic osteomyelitis); (6) severely immunocompromised patients, such as patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus and with a CD4 count of less than 200 cells/mm3, neutropenic patients (<500 neutrophils/mm3), or patients on immunosuppressive therapy after solid organ transplantation; (7) withholding of life support; or (8) absence of antimicrobial treatment despite clinical suspicion of sepsis. Variables recorded at baseline and daily during follow-up included demographic data, diagnosis, comorbidities, vital signs, respiratory parameters, routine blood tests, and results from microbiological cultures. The source of sepsis, when known, was also recorded. The severity of the patient's condition on admission was measured according to the Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS) 3 (18). The presence of organ dysfunction was evaluated at baseline and daily during the entire ICU stay using the Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score (19). Cultures of urine, blood, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and tracheal aspirates were performed on admission and during ICU stay as clinically indicated. Blood gases and imaging exams were also performed as clinically indicated, similarly in both groups.
Interventions The study investigators did not interfere with the duration of antibiotic therapy in patients assigned to the control group. Broad-spectrum parenteral antibiotics were prescribed in patients with suspected severe sepsis or septic shock depending on the suspected source of infection and microbiological cultures, when available. The antibiotic spectrum was narrowed, when possible, based on cultures obtained after patient's admission. A combination of macrolides plus ceftriaxone or amoxicillin/clavulanic acid was initially administered in patients presenting with severe sepsis or septic shock due to community-acquired pneumonia. In patients assigned to the PCT group presenting a favorable clinical course, investigators used predefined "stopping rules" based on circulating PCT levels to encourage caregivers to discontinue antibiotics (Figure E1 of the online supplement). Patients with baseline PCT level greater or equal to 1 µg/L were reevaluated at Day 5. Investigators encouraged treating physicians to discontinue antibiotics when (1) PCT dropped more than 90% from the baseline peak level or (2) an absolute value below 0.25 µg/L was reached. Patients with PCT levels below 1 µg/L at baseline were reevaluated at Day 3, and treating physicians were encouraged to discontinue antibiotics when the PCT level was below 0.1 µg/L, and careful clinical evaluation ruled out severe infection. Of note, the final decision concerning the antibiotic therapy duration was always left to the discretion of the physician in charge. Cases in whom the antibiotic treatment was continued despite the encouragement of the investigators to stop it were classified as "algorithm overruling." Finally, patients with positive blood cultures were assured to receive at least 5 full days of parenteral antibiotic therapy.
PCT Measurement
Outcome
Secondary endpoints were 28-day mortality, in-hospital mortality, length of stay in the ICU and hospital, clinical cure (defined as clinical signs and symptoms present at baseline that had resolved by the final clinical assessment), reoccurrence of the initial infection, and nosocomial superinfection. Death was classified as sepsis related or sepsis unrelated. Nosocomial superinfections were defined according to standard criteria and were generated from data of an ongoing surveillance system (22, 23).
Statistical Analysis
The trial was designed to enroll at least 66 patients, to obtain a power of 90% to detect a 33% (4 d) difference in the duration of antibiotic therapy for the initial infection between the two groups based on an estimated baseline duration of 12 days. We assumed an SD of 5 days in both groups and an A cumulative frequency distribution curve for the time to discontinuation of antibiotic treatment was compared between the two study groups using the log-rank test. The rate of antibiotic treatment discontinuation was estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, after adjustment for severity of illness at baseline. Results are presented as crude (unadjusted) and multivariate (adjusted) hazard ratios (HRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Collected data were entered into a relational database (Access 2000; Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA) and then converted into STATA files (STATA 9.1; Stata Corp., College Station, TX) for analysis. Significance was reported at a P value of 0.05 or less.
Study Patients Seventy-nine of the 282 patients screened for eligibility were randomized; 39 in the PCT group and 40 in the control group (Figure 1). Baseline characteristics of all included patients are shown in Table E1. The two groups had similar demographic, clinical (including severity of illness at the time of admission), and laboratory characteristics (Table E1). A similar proportion of patients with community-acquired sepsis was included in both groups (71% in the PCT group vs. 65% control group, P = 0.35). Sepsis of pulmonary origin predominated in both groups, occurring in 67% of patients in the control group and 64% of patients in the PCT group (P = 0.93). Forty-two percent of the control group patients had septic shock as compared with 43.6% of those in the PCT group (P = 0.89). The 28-day mortality was 20% in the control group and 20.5% in the PCT group (P = 0.82). Twenty-five percent of the deaths in the control group (2/8 patients) were potentially related to sepsis, compared with 37.5% in the PCT group (3/8 patients, P = 0.96). Median PCT levels on admission were similar in patients from the two groups (5.9 µg/L; range, 0.1–497 µg/L, in the control group, vs. 8.4 µg/L; range, 0.1–93.2 µg/L, in the PCT group; P = 0.75; Figure 2). Seven (17.5%) control patients and eight (20.5%) PCT patients had PCT levels on admission that were below 1 µg/L (P = 0.9).
Microbiology The rate of microbiologically confirmed sepsis did not differ significantly between the PCT and the control group (47.5 vs. 53.8%, respectively; P = 0.73). Blood cultures were positive in 27.5% of patients in the control group and 35.9% in the PCT group (P = 0.57). Forty-nine causative microorganisms (24 in the PCT group and 25 in the control group) were isolated in different clinical specimens. The most frequent pathogens were Escherichia coli (28%, control group, vs. 29.1%, PCT group), Streptococcus pneumoniae (12%, control group, vs. 41.6%, PCT group), Klebsiella spp. (8%, control group, vs. 8.3%, PCT group), other enterobacteriaceae (12%, control group, vs. 4.1%, PCT group), and Staphylococcus aureus (12%, control group, vs. 4.1%, PCT group). No significant difference was observed in baseline PCT levels and in the time course of PCT levels in patients with gram-positive versus gram-negative infections (data not shown).
Primary Endpoints Because of dropouts (early deaths and newly discovered complicated infections), 68 patients (control group, n = 37, and PCT group, n = 31) reached a time when a decision to stop antibiotics could be taken (PCT group) or potentially be taken (control group) based on the relative decrease of daily measured PCT levels (per-protocol analysis, Figure 1). Similarly to the intention-to-treat analysis, the two groups were balanced according to baseline characteristics (Table 1). "Algorithm overruling" in the PCT group (i.e., treating physician refused to stop the antibiotics, although the stopping rules allowed this) occurred in 6 of 31 (19%) patients of the PCT group. Patients strictly treated according to the PCT-guided protocol (deleting patients who had the algorithm overruled) had a significantly shorter median duration of antibiotic therapy for the first episode of infection than those in whom the protocol was not applied (6 d; range, 4–16 d, vs. 12.5 d; range, 8–16 d; P = 0.0002). In no case assigned to the PCT group did the treating physicians stop antibiotics before the time when patients had reached the criteria for discontinuation based on the algorithm.
Overall, the median antibiotic duration for the first episode of infection was significantly reduced in patients randomized to the PCT group compared with controls (6 d; range, 4–16 d, vs. 10 d; range, 3–33 d; P = 0.003). The probability to have antibiotics stopped earlier was almost twofold higher in the PCT group than in the control group (HR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.2–3.1; P = 0.009; Figure 3). This difference persisted after adjusting for disease severity (SAPS 3) and type of sepsis (adjusted HR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.2–3.2; P = 0.009). Patients assigned to PCT-guided antibiotic therapy had significantly fewer total antibiotic exposure days compared with control subjects (IRR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1–1.5; P = 0.0002; Table 3). Finally, the mean number of days alive without antibiotics was significantly higher in patients from the PCT group compared with those in the control group (17.4 ± 7.6 vs. 13.6 ± 7.6 d, respectively; P = 0.04). Similar significant results were observed when considering only the subset of patients with a PCT level at admission above or equal to 1 µg/L (Table E2). A recurrence of the primary infection after discontinuation of the antibiotic therapy occurred in one patient in each group (P = 0.7).
For the 22 patients with a positive blood culture (11 patients in each group), the median duration of antibiotic therapy was significantly shorter in patients assigned to the PCT group as compared with those assigned to the control group (7 d; range, 6–13 d, vs. 13 d; range, 6–33 d; P = 0.01; Table E3). Despite the relatively short duration of treatment in bacteremic patients assigned to the PCT group, no case of recurrence of infection was observed in these patients (Table E3).
Secondary Endpoints Patients randomized to the PCT group had a significantly shorter median ICU length of stay than control subjects (3 d; range, 1–18 d, vs. 5 d; range, 1–30 d, respectively; P = 0.03; Figure 4 and Table 3), and a tendency to stay for a shorter period in the hospital (14 d; range, 5–64 d, vs. 21 d; range, 5–89 d; P = 0.16; Figure 4 and Table 3).
We observed a significant reduction in antibiotic use, without apparent harm in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock for whom a decision could be made based an algorithm of serial PCT measurements (per-protocol analysis). Interestingly, patients assigned to the PCT group had a significantly shorter ICU length of stay. The duration of antimicrobial treatment is usually based on empirical rules. This is also the case for septic patients, in whom antibiotic overuse is frequent (24), resulting in development of bacterial resistance (2) and increasing costs (3). Significant progress has been made in the last years to reduce the duration of antibiotic therapy in infected patients (25). On the basis of an empirical protocol, Chastre and colleagues showed that both the 28-day mortality and the frequency of recurrent infections were similar between patients receiving 15 days of antibiotic therapy and those treated for only 8 days (5). Of note, patients with pneumonia caused by nonfermenting gram-negative bacilli had a higher rate of recurrence of pulmonary infections when treated for only 8 days (5). Much effort has been put into the search for sensitive and specific tools to guide antibiotic therapy in septic patients (26). Many clinicians agree that a noninvasive and readily available biochemical parameter would be highly desirable to attain this goal. PCT was demonstrated to be more accurate for the diagnosis of bacterial sepsis than any other routinely used inflammatory marker (7, 8, 27). Moreover, slowly decreasing, persistently elevated (7), or increasing PCT levels (11) are associated with poor outcomes in patients with severe infections. Three recent interventional trials have tested the role of PCT in guiding antibiotic therapy in patients admitted to the emergency department, either by limiting the use of these drugs in patients with low probability of bacterial infection or by shortening the duration of antimicrobial treatment. Overall, it was shown that PCT guidance allows reducing the use of antibiotics in patients presenting with symptoms of lower respiratory tract infection (9), in patients with acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis (28), and in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (10). It should be emphasized that most of the published interventional studies on PCT predominantly enrolled mildly to moderately ill patients, except for the Procalcitonin Guidance of Antibiotic Therapy in Community-Acquired Pneumonia (ProCAP) study (10), which included a significant proportion of patients with severe community-acquired infections. Our study is the first randomized clinical trial in which a surrogate biochemical parameter was used to reduce the duration of antibiotic therapy in a population of critically ill patients admitted to the ICU for severe sepsis and septic shock. More than half of them required high-dose vasopressors, and 80% required mechanical ventilation. The effect on antibiotic use was most pronounced in patients in whom a decision could be made based on serial PCT measurements (per-protocol analysis). It is worthy to stress that in 19% of patients allocated to the PCT group, treating physicians refused to stop the antibiotics, although the stopping rules allowed this (Table E4). We can consider protocol overruling (i.e., prolongation of the antibiotic therapy by the treating physician beyond the stopping rule) as a "conservative bias." Interestingly, the median duration of antibiotic therapy in septic patients with positive blood culture was 7 days in the PCT group compared with 13 days in control patients (Table E3). In many centers, a minimum of 14 days of parenteral antibiotic therapy is the empirical rule for treatment of bacteremia in the context of sepsis. Although the numbers were small (11 patients), neither a recurrence of the primary infection nor increased mortality was noted in PCT patients who were treated for 1 week only. Reducing the use of antibiotics in septic patients may result in several potential advantages. First, limiting the exposure to antibiotics is potentially the best strategy to avoid the selection of resistant bacteria and decrease the risk of cross-contamination between patients with these resistant microorganisms (29). Second, the use of prolonged antimicrobial therapy is associated with costs, particularly when broad-spectrum agents are used (3). An additional and even more impressive impact on the treatment-related costs may be expected from the possible reduction of hospital and ICU length of stay consequent to the shorter duration of intravenous antibiotic therapy. This effect was observed in our study, yet further studies have to confirm this finding. Although we do not have a definite explanation for this finding, it is conceivable that caregivers considered it safe to discharge their patients from the ICU (and subsequently from the hospital) because no adverse event was observed after earlier than anticipated antibiotic discontinuation. Finally, in contrast with empirical rules, the present study allows the clinician to customize the duration of antibiotic therapy in septic patients on the basis of an objective and reliable biomarker. It is likely that different septic patients may need different lengths of antibiotic therapy depending on the virulence of the causative microorganism and the clearance rate of the infectious process, factors potentially reflected in the rate of decrease of plasma PCT levels (Table E5). Several limitations of the present study must be considered. First, this is a single-center study with a relatively small sample of patients, which could limit generalizing the results. Although we did not find signals of higher mortality or increased recurrence of the primary infection in the PCT group, we cannot exclude a potential harm of shortening antibiotic therapy based on PCT guidance given the relatively small number of patients studied. A noninferiority trial giving a definite answer on the safety of PCT-guided therapy, based on our results, would need to include several hundreds of septic patients per arm. Second, the number of dropouts observed in this trial was imbalanced between the two groups (8 patients in the PCT group vs. 3 patients in the control group, P = 0.197). However, the inclusion criteria for the per-protocol analysis were a priori defined, and all "dropout" decisions were made without identification of the patient's assignment group. It should be stressed that the patients included in the per-protocol analysis correspond to the target population for PCT guidance in real-life conditions. Third, the observed median duration of antibiotic therapy in the control group was somewhat shorter than expected in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock (10 d vs. 12 d anticipated). This may be due to a worldwide tendency to shorten empirical antibiotic duration or to a learning curve by treating physicians in our ICU who had detected that a short duration in the PCT group was not associated with significant harm. In any case, this represents a conservative bias reinforcing the usefulness of a PCT-guided approach. Fourth, the proportional frequency of bacterial species isolated was somewhat imbalanced between the two groups, with a higher incidence of S. pneumoniae in the PCT group. Whether this influenced outcomes is difficult to determine, because the optimal duration of antibiotic therapy for severe pneumococcal diseases is not known. Eighty percent of patients with pneumococcal infection in our study required mechanical ventilation, showing the severity of these cases. It remains possible, however, that patients with severe pneumococcal infection, but correctly treated (30), have a particularly rapid decrease in PCT levels, which may have positively impacted on the results of our study. Fifth, a small proportion of patients included in the study had low baseline PCT levels. These may correspond to false negatives or patients misdiagnosed at the time of admission, suffering from noninfectious systemic inflammatory response syndrome. Many of these patients, however, had microbiological cultures confirming bacterial infections (mostly ventilator-associated pneumonia). These cases may reflect low-grade bacterial infection, and such patients might benefit from an early reassessment and shorter antibiotic treatment duration, as proposed in our protocol. Finally, the algorithm proposed in the present study cannot apply to all patients presenting in the ICU with severe sepsis and septic shock. For security, we excluded difficult-to-treat microorganisms, infections that are known to require prolonged antibiotic therapy, and severely immunocompromised and neutropenic patients. Our data support the concept that PCT guidance allows reducing antibiotic exposure in critically ill patients with severe sepsis and septic shock, and that this strategy is not associated with worse outcomes. However, to evaluate if a PCT-based strategy is cost-efficient under real-life conditions, cost aspects should be carefully considered. In the ProCAP study, Christ-Crain and colleagues showed that despite a 6-day reduction in antibiotic use in patients enrolled in the PCT-guided group, the cost of the PCT measurement limited the daily use of this marker (10). Thus, lowering the price of PCT measurement may be crucial if the test is to be established as a cost-efficient measure for antibiotic stewardship in a public health perspective. In the present study, we performed daily measurement of PCT in the context of a clinical study protocol. However, the number of PCT measurements could be reduced in real life according to the "stopping rules" defined in our study. Only two to three PCT measurements (e.g., on Day 0 and Day 5, plus 1 subsequent day) may allow stopping antibiotics in a majority of patients. Three PCT dosages correspond to $177 at the current selling price in Switzerland. The PCT-related costs are therefore likely to be counterbalanced by the savings due to a 4-day shortening of parenteral antibiotic therapy. If indirect cost savings, such as shortening of ICU and hospital lengths of stay, are taken into account, then costs related to PCT measurement will largely be outweighed by those savings. Further studies are also needed to demonstrate the impact of shortening the duration of antibiotic therapy on important outcomes such as (1) the rate of nosocomial infections in critically ill patients and (2) the incidence of colonization and infection with multiresistant bacteria in the ICU.
Conclusions
The authors thank the medical and nursing staff of the ICU at the University Hospitals of Geneva for their participation in the study, Jérôme Choffat for performing PCT measurements, and Louise Riberdy for helping with patient recruitment.
This study was presented in part at the 47th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Chicago, Illinois, September 2007. This article has an online supplement, which is accessible from this issue's table of contents at www.atsjournals.org Originally Published in Press as DOI: 10.1164/rccm.200708-1238OC on December 20, 2007 Conflict of Interest Statement: V.N. does not have a financial relationship with a commercial entity that has an interest in the subject of this manuscript. S.H. and J.P. received a research grant from BRAHMS AG ($50,000). BRAHMS AG had no influence on study design, data analysis, or final preparation of this manuscript. S.H. received speaker honoraria ($1,500) from BRAHMS AG. J.-D.G. does not have a financial relationship with a commerical entity that has an interest in the subject of this manuscript. P.R. does not have a financial relationship with a commercial entity that has an interest in the subject of this manuscript. J.P. received speaking honoraria from BRAHMS AG (less than $1,000 in 2006 and 2007). Received in original form August 22, 2007; accepted in final form December 18, 2007
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TOP
ABSTRACT
AT A GLANCE COMMENTARY
1 µg/L). In control patients, clinicians decided on the duration of antibiotic therapy based on empirical rules. 
error of 0.05. Comparability of the standard group and the PCT group was analyzed by the 
2 test (Yates' test or Fisher's exact test), two-sample t test, and Mann-Whitney U test, as appropriate. 
