Impact of the Lab-score on Antibiotic Prescription Rate in Children With Fever Without Source

Detecting serious bacterial infections (SBI) in children presenting to the Pediatric Emergency Department (PED) with fever without source (FWS) is a frequent diagnostic challenge. The recently described Lab-score, based on the combined determination of Procalcitonin, C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and urine dipstick results, has been shown an accurate tool for SBI prediction on retrospective cohorts. The investigators aimed to assess the usefulness of the Lab-score in safely decreasing unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions in children with FWS, and to prospectively determine the diagnostic characteristics of the Lab-score compared to other classically used SBI biomarkers (white blood cell (WBC) count, band count and CRP).