The Clinical Significance of Procalcitonin Elevation in Patients over 75 Years Old Admitted for COVID-19 Pneumonia

Table 1

Overview of the main demographical, radiological, and virological characteristics on admission of the 1074 patients included in the study, stratified according to procalcitonin levels on admission.

	()	PCT ≥0.05-<0.5 ng/ml ()	PCT ≥0.5-<2 ng/ml ()	()		for trend
Age, years	65 (58-80)	74 (63-83)	78 (68-84)	78 (70-85)	<0.001	<0.001
Females, %	65	43	35	34	<0.001	<0.001
Consolidations on HRCT, %	56	70	65	73	0.009	0.069
HRCT visual score	20 (15-30)	30 (20-48)	40 (25-60)	35 (20-56)	<0.001	<0.001
First swab positive for SARS-CoV-2, %	55	65	69	69	0.082	0.032

Data reported as median and interquartile range (IQR) or percentage. values calculated with Kruskal-Wallis or chi-square tests, for trend with ANOVA. values < 0.05 are indicated in bold (PCT: procalcitonin; HRCT: high-resolution computed tomography; SARS-CoV-2: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus-2).