Increased circulating procalcitonin concentration

What it means

An elevated concentration of procalcitonin in the blood circulation.

Procalcitonin is a 116 amino acid peptide that has an approximate MW of 14.5 kDa and belongs to the calcitonin (CT) superfamily of peptides. It can be divided into 3 sections including the amino terminus of the PCT region, immature calcitonin, and calcitonin carboxyl-terminus peptide-1 (CCP-1). Procalcitonin is encoded by CALC-1 gene located on chromosome 11. Cleavage in 1 site of the primary transcript of CALC-1 gene produces pre-PCT, which further undergoes proteolytic cleavage of its signal sequence to produce PCT. The synthesized PCT then undergoes post-translational processing to produce small peptides and mature CT. PCT is a biomarker that exhibits greater specificity than other proinflammatory markers (eg, cytokines) in identifying patients with sepsis and can be used in the diagnosis of bacterial infections. The short half-life (25-30 hours in plasma) of PCT, coupled with its virtual absence in health and specificity for bacterial infections, gives it a clear advantage over the other markers of bacterial infection.

Rare diseases that can present with this3

The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.

Part of the broader category

Also called: Increased circulating procalcitonin level