Early identification of infectious complications in pediatric burn patients: a prospective cohort study.
Infection Score outperformed CRP and procalcitonin for detecting infection in burned children
Early identification of infectious complications in pediatric burn patients: a prospective cohort study.
To assess early identification of infectious complications in pediatric burn patients and to evaluate the performance of the Intensive Care Infection Score (Infection Score) in comparison with conventional inflammatory biomarkers.
Tertiary pediatric burn intensive care unit.
Infection Score distinguished infected from non-infected burn patients better than CRP or procalcitonin
Receiver operating characteristic analysis demonstrated higher discriminative performance of Infection Score compared with C-reactive protein and procalcitonin in this cohort.
At a cutoff value of ≥4, Infection Score demonstrated very high sensitivity and negative predictive value in this cohort, with no false-negative observations, and a specificity of 0.70.
In pediatric burn patients, Infection Score demonstrated high diagnostic accuracy in this cohort and improved discrimination compared with C-reactive protein and procalcitonin, particularly as a rule-out test.
These findings provide novel evidence on the application of Infection Score in a pediatric burn population.
As Infection Score is derived from routine blood counts without additional sampling or direct laboratory cost, it may represent a practical tool to support early clinical decision-making and antimicrobial stewardship in pediatric burn care.