Sato S, Sato S, Tsuzura H, et al. - In patients with liver cirrhosis, researchers assessed if and how serum procalcitonin levels, an early diagnostic marker of bacterial infection, are associated with the prognosis of these patients. Serum procalcitonin levels were retrospectively analyzed in 236 hospitalized patients with liver cirrhosis. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards analyses and the Kaplan–Meier method were applied to analyze the effect of the serum procalcitonin level on their prognoses. The results of this study indicate that, regardless of local bacterial infections, those with liver cirrhosis had higher serum procalcitonin levels, which were correlated with poor prognoses. Three-year cumulative survival rate for patients with normal serum procalcitonin levels was 72.9%, while the rate for elevated serum procalcitonin levels was 56.0%.