Davut BOZKAYA, Şule YİĞİT, Murat YURDAKÖK

Is serum procalcitonin level a reliable indicator in early diagnosis of congenital pneumonia?

The clinical signs in congenital pneumonia mimic other conditions like transienttachypnea of the newborn (TTN) and respiratory distress syndrome (RDS).Differential diagnosis is difficult since laboratory findings have limited value.Procalcitonin (PCT) is an important and widely studied marker of infection.The aim of this study was to determine the diagnostic value of PCT innewborn patients hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)with the diagnosis of congenital pneumonia.The infants with respiratory distress who were born at Hacettepe Universitybetween 2005-2015 and hospitalized in the NICU were included in the study.A total of 200 newborn infants; 54 (27%) infants with congenital pneumonia(Group-1), 42 (21%) infants with TTN (Group-2), 40 (20%) infants withRDS (Group-3) and 64 (32%) healthy infants (group-4), were included in thestudy. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups forserum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, sampling time for PCT and CRP andthe characteristics of the mother (p> 0.05). Mean serum PCT level was higherin the congenital pneumonia group than in the other groups (p< 0.001). Result of this study shows that procalcitonin is an important early markerin the diagnosis of congenital pneumonia.

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