BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to compare the validity of two different procalcitonin assays .

METHODS: We collected 63 plasma samples from a stat laboratory . The plasma values of procalcitonin ranged from 0.01 to 98.1 µg/L when tested on the Access® platform and from <0.05 to 98.5 µg/L when tested on the VIDAS® platform . The patients included 28 females ranging in age from 8 to 98 years of age (68 ± 22.6 years) and 35 males ranging in age from 35 to 90 years of age (69.2 ± 13.4 years).

RESULTS: In this study, the agreement between the two methods was good and Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) was 0.989 (p <0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: In summary, a high correlation exists between quantitative procalcitonin measurements conducted with the VIDAS® BRAHMS and the Beckman Coulter Unicel® DXI assays . The VIDAS® BRAHMS procalcitonin assay is a reliable method for determining the levels of procalcitonin in plasma, but requires manual operation, hands-on technical expertise, and time . On the other hand, the Beckman Coulter Unicel® DXI assay is fully automated and may increase laboratory efficiency, and reduce the overall turnaround time.