Diagnostic Accuracy of Presepsin and Its Impact on Early Antibiotic De-Escalation in Burn-Related Sepsis.

Background/objectives: Despite overlapping inflammatory responses and frequent culture-negative results in severe burn patients, early and accurate sepsis diagnosis remains challenging. We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of seven candidate biomarkers and their clinical utility, particularly in culture-negative cases.

Methods: We conducted a prospective diagnostic accuracy study (January 2021-December 2022; N = 221) in the burn intensive care unit, applying a two-step feature selection to 41 candidate variables.