Clinical Significance of Procalcitonin in Early Diagnosis of Neonatal Infection

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of procalcitonin(PCT) in early diagnosis of neonatal infections.Methods Rapid hemi-quantitative immunoassay was used to measure PCT levels in 196 hospitalized neonates, who were divided into sepsis group,(local-)infection group, virus-infection group and non-infection group.Results If plasma PCT≥0.5 μg/L was taken as positive,the positive rates in sepsis group,local-infection,virus-infection,non-infection group were 87.87%,41.66 %,12.0%,11.11%,respectively.The positive rate of sepsis group was significantly higher than that of the other 3 groups(all P0.001).If 0.5 μg/L was taken as critical value, PCT sensitivity in the diagnosis of sepsis was 87.88%,and the specificity (66.26%);if 2.0g/L was taken as the critical va-(lue),PCT sensitivity and specificity were 54.55%,96.32%,respectively.Compared with blood culture, the positive rate of PCT was much higher. Conclusion PCT may be the high sensitive and specific discriminator in early diagnosis of neonatal infections.