Procalcitonin: A Severity Marker for Pre-Eclampsia?

Introduction: Pre-eclampsia is a common and potentially dangerous disorder of human pregnancy. The maternal syndrome of hypertension and proteinuria is part of a severe systemic inflammatory response that includes leukocyte and endothelial cell activation.PCT is a polypeptide consisting of 116 aminoacids and is the precursor of calcitonin. Over the last decade, PCT has become increasingly popular as a novel marker of infection in the intensive care unit setting. The aim of our study was to evaluate changes in serum levels of PCT in pregnancies complicated with mild pre-eclampsia or severe pre-eclampsia and further investigate the correlation with CRP.Methods: Throughout the study period, 80 pregnant women complicated with mild preeclampsia, 80 pregnant women complicated with severe preeclampsia and 80 healthy pregnant women as a control group, giving a total of 240 pregnant women were enrolled into study.Results: Both severe pre-eclampsia and mild pre-eclampsia groups showed significantly higher PCT values when compared with control healthy group (p<0.05). Also, severe pre-eclampsia group showed significantly higher PCT values when compared with mild pre-eclampsia group (p<0.05).A statistically significant correlation was observed in between presence of pre-eclampsia and procalcitonin positivity (p<0.05). And also severity of pre-eclampsia has shown a statistically significant correlation with high values of procalcitonin (p<0.05).Conclusion: Procalcitonin might be a diagnostic marker for investigating women especially with suspected severe preeclampsia