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Background: Serum procalcitonin (PCT) concentration is used to guide antibiotic decisions in choice, timing, and duration of anti-infection therapy to avoid antibiotic overuse. Thus, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to seek evidence of different PCT-guided antimicrobial strategies for critically ill patients in terms of predefined clinical outcomes. Methods: We searched for relevant studies in PubMed, Embase, Web of Knowledge, and the Cochrane Library up to 25 February 2017. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included if they reported data on any of the predefined outcomes in adult ICU patients managed with a PCT-guided algorithm or according to standard care. Results were expressed as risk ratio (RR) or mean difference (MD) with accompanying 95% confidence interval (CI). Data synthesis: We included 13 trials enrolling 5136 patients. These studies used PCT in three clinical strategies: initiation, discontinuation, or combination of antibiotic initiation and discontinuation strategies. Pooled analysis showed a PCT-guided antibiotic discontinuation strategy had fewer total days with antibiotics (MD − 1.66 days; 95% CI − 2.36 to − 0.96 days), longer antibiotic-free days (MD 2.26 days; 95% CI 1.40-3.12 days), and lower short-term mortality (RR 0.87; 95% CI 0.76-0.98), without adversely affecting other outcomes. Only few studies reported data on other PCT-guided strategies for antibiotic therapies, and the pooled results showed no benefit in the predefined outcomes. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis produced evidence that among all the PCT-based strategies, only using PCT for antibiotic discontinuation can reduce both antibiotic exposure and short-term mortality in a critical care setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There are different mNGS criteria for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). • These criteria showed moderate diagnostic agreement in diagnosing IPA. • All mNGS-derived criteria showed low sensitivity but high specificity. • Despite using the optimal threshold, the sensitivity of mNGS is less than 50 %. To compare different criteria of Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing (mNGS) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) for diagnosing invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). We compared the diagnostic agreement and performances of six BALF mNGS-derived criteria (SDSMRN>1, SDSMRN≥3, SMRN≥10, SMRN≥50, RPM ratio≥10, and relative abundance of genus>30 %) in pneumonia patients. A total of 115 patients were analyzed, with 28 identified with IPA. Diagnostic agreement among the six mNGS-derived criteria was moderate, with a Cohen's kappa of 0.577(P < 0.001). mNGS-derived criteria had low sensitivity ranging from 21.4 % to 57.1 % and high specificity from 88 % to 92 %. The optimal threshold of SDSMRN, SMRN, RPM ratio, and relative abundance of genus for diagnosing IPA were 5, 0.25, 8, and 20 %, respectively. Although using the optimal threshold, the sensitivity of mNGS is lower than 50 %. All mNGS-derived criteria had low sensitivity for diagnosing IPA. A combination of mNGS and conventional mycological tests may be the best diagnostic strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]