Changes and significances of vascular endothelial cadherin, procalcitonin in serum and cerebrospinal fluid of children with viral encephalitis or bacterial meningitis / 中华实用儿科临床杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the changes and clinical significance of vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin and procalcitonin (PCT) in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of children with viral encephalitis or bacterial meningitis(BM).@*Methods@#A total of 42 cases of children with viral encephalitis(viral encephalitis group), 36 cases of children with BM(BM group), and 20 cases of children with non-nervous system injury(control group) were selected from September 2016 to June 2018 at the Third Hospital of Zhengzhou University.The serum and CSF levels of VE-cadherin and PCT levels of the 3 groups were detected by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.@*Results@#The levels of VE-cadherin in the serum of viral encephalitis group, BM group and control group at the acute phase were (5.60±1.17) mg/L, (7.08±1.01) mg/L and (2.52±0.68) mg/L respectively, and the levels of VE-cadherin in CSF of viral encephalitis group, BM group and control group were (6.00±1.09) mg/L, (6.97±1.11) mg/L and(1.93±0.88) mg/L, respectively.The levels of PCT in the serum of viral encephalitis group, BM group and control group at the acute phase were (0.26±0.11) μg/L, (0.82±0.17) μg/L and (0.27±0.13) μg/L, respectively, and the levels of PCT in the CSF of viral encephalitis group, BM group and control group were (0.25±0.11) μg/L, (0.72±0.14) μg/L, (0.28±0.17) μg/L, respectively.As a result, the levels of VE-cadherin and PCT in the serum and CSF of BM group showed significant increase, compared with viral encephalitis group and control group in the acute phase(F=124.94, 163.21, 151.62, 127.37, all P<0.01). The levels of VE-cadherin in the serum and CSF of viral encephalitis group were also significantly higher than that of control group (all P<0.01), but there was no difference between viral encephalitis group and control group about the levels of PCT in the serum and CSF (all P>0.05). The levels of VE-cadherin in the serum of viral encephalitis group and BM group after treatment were (2.34±0.81) mg/L and (2.67±1.29) mg/L, and were(2.55±0.92) mg/L and(2.39±0.74) mg/L in the CSF.The levels of PCT in the serum of viral encephalitis group and BM group after treatment were (0.25±0.11) μg/L, (0.30±0.17) μg/L, and the levels of PCT in the CSF of viral encephalitis group and BM group were(0.22±0.10) μg/L and (0.27±0.12) μg/L.After effective treatment, the levels of VE-cadherin, PCT in serum and CSF of BM group and viral encephalitis group were almost equal, and the difference was not statistically significant(F=1.83, 0.76, 2.72, 3.89, all P>0.05). In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, the area under the ROC curve of VE-cadherin in serum and CSF was 0.896 and 0.912, and was 0.670 and 0.668 of PCT respectively.@*Conclusions@#VE-cadherin may be involved in the early stage of intracranial infection, and it may be helpful in differentiation of virus or bacterial infection with PCT.VE-cadherin has a good diagnostic value for intracranial infection.