Evaluation of Diagnostic Value of Procalcitonin as a Marker of Neonatal Bacterial Infections

Objective: this study tried to assess sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of procalcitonin for diagnosis of neonatal bacterial infections. methods: this prospective cross sectional study was carried out during an 18-month period in nicu and neonatal wards of besat hospital in hamedan province, iran. 39 symptomatic infants with clinical and laboratory findings in favor of bacterial infection with a positive blood, csf, and/or supra pubic urine culture entered the study; 32 newborns without any bacterial infection served as control group. quantitative procalcitonin level ≥0.5 ng/ml was accepted as pathological. finally sensitivity, specificity, positive (ppv) and negative predictive value (npv) were calculated for procalcitonin test. findings: 20 blood cultures, 17 urine cultures and 8 csf cultures were positive. sensitivity, specificity, ppv and npv for procalcitonin test was 76.9%, 100%, 100% and 78% respectively. diagnostic value of procalcitonin test in accordance with blood culture for mentioned items was 85%, 100%, 100% and 91.4% respectively. its diagnostic value according to urine culture was: sensitivity 70.6%, specificity 100%, ppv 100% and npv 86.4%, and according to csf culture was: sensitivity 75%, specificity 100%, ppv 100% and npv 94.1% respectively. conclusion: the results show that the procalcitonin test has high sensitivity, specificity, ppv and npv for diagnosis of neonatal infections.