Evaluation of procalcitonin for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis of vertical transmission.docVIP

BMC Pediatrics BioMedCentral Research article Open Access Evaluation of procalcitonin for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis of vertical transmission José B López Sastre*1, David Pérez Solís1, Vicente Roqués Serradilla2, Belén Fernández Colomer1, Gil D Coto Cotallo1 and Grupo de Hospitales Castrillo3 Address: 1Service of Neonatology, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, Oviedo, Spain, 2Service of Neonatology, Hospital Universitario La Fe, Valencia, Spain and 3Grupo de Hospitales Castrillo. Service of Neonatology, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, Oviedo, Spain Email: José B López Sastre* - jose_lopez_sastre@; David Pérez Solís - david.perez@sespa.princast.es; Vicente Roqués Serradilla - roes5@; Belén Fernández Colomer - bcolomer@arrakis.es; Gil D Coto Cotallo - gildaniel.coto@sespa.princast.es; Grupo de Hospitales Castrillo - gcastrillo@arrakis.es * Corresponding author Published: 26 February 2007 Received: 4 July 2006 Accepted: 26 February 2007 BMC Pediatrics 2007, 7:9 doi:10.1186/1471-2431-7-9 This article is available from: /1471-2431/7/9 ? 2007 López Sastre et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The results of recent studies suggest the usefulness of PCT for early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis, with varying results. The aim of this prospective multicenter study was to determine the behavior of serum PCT concentrations in both uninfected and infected neonates, and to assess the value of this marker for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis of vertical transmission. Methods: PCT was measured in 827 blood samples collected prospectively from 317 neonates admitted to 13 acute-care teaching hospitals in Spain over one year. Serum PCT concentrations