Please select the eligibility criteria that correspond to the clinical trial below.
Title: The Procalcitonin and Survival Study - A Multicentre Single Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial to Investigate if Treatment Guided by Daily Procalcitonin Measurements Can Reduce Mortality in the Intensive Care Unit
Brief Summary: This is a randomised, single blinded, multicentre trial to evaluate whether daily procalcitonin (PCT) measurements and immediate diagnostic and therapeutic responses to abnormal values and day-to-day changes can reduce the mortality of critically ill patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).


Options:
A: Inclusion Criteria:

* Severe sepsis or septic shock according to ACCP/SCCM criteria
* Onset of severe sepsis or septic shock \<24 h
* Age \>= 18 years
* Informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

* Pregnant or breast-feeding women
* Fertile female women without effective contraception
* Participation in interventional clinical trial within the last 30 days
* Current participation in any study
* Former participation in this trial
* Selenium intoxication
* No commitment to full patient support (i.e. DNR order)
* Patient's death is considered imminent due to coexisting disease
* Relationship of the patient to study team member (i.e. colleague, relative)
* Infection where guidelines recommend a longer duration of antimicrobial therapy (i.e. endocarditis, tuberculosis, malaria etc)
* Immunocompromised patients
B: Inclusion Criteria:

Fulfilment of all of the following three criteria:

1. Male or female, aged \> 18 years of age.
2. Admitted to the participating Intensive Care Units (ICUs) at the following hospitals: Hvidovre Hospital, Bispebjerg Hospital, Amager Hospital, Herlev Hospital, Glostrup Hospital, and Gentofte Hospital
3. Ability to understand and provide written informed consent to participate in this trial; or ability to understand and provide oral informed consent in the presence of at least one impartial witness who should sign and personally date the consent form; or the subject's legally acceptable representative can understand and provide written informed consent if the subject is not capable of this because of the present mental or physical condition of the subject.

Exclusion Criteria:

A subject will NOT be eligible for inclusion in this trial if any of the following criteria apply:

1. Subjects with known hyperbilirubinaemia (\> 0.4 mg/ml) or hypertriglyceridaemia (\> 10 g/l) since this can interfere with measurements. If subjects with unknown status on these points are included and have PCT measurements, the measuring equipment will detect these conditions.
2. Subjects suffering from a blood disorder, where daily sampling of 7 ml of blood for a maximum of 28 days (210 ml distributed on 28 days) will be an inconvenience or a potential risk, which could compromise the safety of the subject.
3. Subjects who are pregnant or breast feeding

The a priori probability of surviving with the normal recommended diagnostics and treatment with the presently available means to detect infections and, on the other hand, the normal diagnostics and treatment together with daily procalcitonin measurements and prompt clinical reaction should be equal.
C: Inclusion Criteria:

* Age over 18 years old
* receiving antibiotics for no more than 24 hours for an assumed or proven infection
* Informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

* Failure to obtain written consent to participate
* Patients receiving prolonged antibiotic therapies (\> 3 weeks, e.g. endocarditis, cerebral/hepatic abscess)
* Patients with severe infections due to viruses or parasites (e.g. Dengue, Toxoplasma gondii, Plasmodium spp.)
* Patients infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis
* Patients entering the ICU for post-operative observation and/or on antibiotic prophylaxis with an estimated length of stay less then 24 hrs.
* Patients suffering from cystic fibrosis
* Severely immunocompromised patients such as patients with HIV and with a CD4 count of less than 200 cells/mm, neutropenic patients (\<500 neutrophils per mL) or patients with solid organ transplantation
* Moribund patients
D: Inclusion Criteria:

* Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that report on the outcomes of critically ill patients managed with a procalcitonin-guided algorithm versus routine practice.
* Participants of any age with proven or suspected sepsis will be considered. - As routine practice, the investigators will consider the institution and discontinuation of antibiotics by the attending physicians with the aid of clinical signs, symptoms, microbiological data, well established laboratory parameters (i.e., white blood cell count) and widely accepted guidelines but without the knowledge of PCT values. The investigators will set no limitations regarding the time, country or language of publications. The investigators will search for trials conducted in critically ill neonates and children.

Exclusion Criteria:

* The investigators will exclude studies that are not RCTs and studies performed outside the ICU, namely in the primary care setting, the emergency department or the clinic.

Answer: B