Diagnostic value of serum procalcitonin and C-reactive protein in etiological evaluation of diabetic ketoacidosis

This study was carried out in the Medical Causality and Intensive Care Units of Internal Medicine and Clinical Pathology Departments, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University Hospitals, during the period from June 2006 to December 2007.This study had been carried out to evaluate serum Procalcitonin and C-reactive protein as diagnostic markers of infection in diabetic ketoacidosis patients. For this purpose, fifty patients had been enrolled in this study, ten apparently healthy volunteers as control and forty patients admitted with moderate-to-severe diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) fulfilling the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria. Patients are classified into twenty DKA patients without any clinical or bacteriological evidence of sepsis any where in the body and twenty DKA patients with infection proved by clinical and/or bacteriological examination.