The journal of maternal-fetal & neonatal medicine : the official journal of the European Association of Perinatal Medicine, the Federation of Asia and Oceania Perinatal Societies, the International Society of Perinatal Obstetricians
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J. Matern. Fetal. Neonatal. Med. · Jan 2009
Reliability of procalcitonin in neonatology. Experience in 59 preterm newborns.
Procalcitonin (PCT) has been proposed as an interesting marker in the diagnosis, prognosis, and response to treatment of patient with neonatal sepsis. Fifty-nine neonates (34 males and 25 females) with a mean gestational age of approximately 31 weeks and a mean weight of about 1750 g admitted in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Cagliari (Italy) were evaluated in controls and in infected neonates, before and after 48 h of life. From our experience it emerges that PCT is a marker of early and late neonatal sepsis which is reliable in preterm neonates. A cut-off of 0.5 ng/ml starting from the third day of life appears to be capable of ensuring good test sensitivity and specificity.