Journal of Gastrointestinal & Digestive System
Open Access

Role of Procalcitonin in the Timely Detection of Ischemia and Necrosis in Children with Intestinal Obstruction

Alfredo Domínguez-Muñoz¹, Roberto Dávila-Perez¹, Emilio Fernández-Portilla¹, Israel Parra-Ortega², Alfonso Reyes-López³ and Eduardo Bracho-Blanchet^1*

¹Department of General Surgery, Hospital Infantil de Mexico Federico Gomez, Mexico City, México

²Department of Clinical Laboratory, Hospital Infantil de Mexico Federico Gomez, Mexico City, México

³Department of Clinical Research, Hospital Infantil de Mexico Federico Gomez, Mexico City, México

Received Date: Nov 18, 2022 / Published Date: Feb 09, 2023

Citation: Dominguez A, Perez R, Fernandez E, Ortega I, Lopez A, et al. (2023) Role of Procalcitonin in the Timely Detection of Ischemia and Necrosis in Children with Intestinal Obstruction. J Gastrointest Dig Syst 13:731

Copyright: © 2023 Dominguez A, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Introduction: Procalcitonin (PCT) has been studied for early identification of Ischemia and/or Necrosis (I/N) in children with Intestinal Obstruction (IO) secondary to Adhesive Small Bowel Obstruction (ASBO). However, the causes of IO in children are numerous.

Purpose: To correlate the level of PCT with the presence of I/N.

Results: Fifty-seven patients were analyzed. The incidence of I/N was 36%. PCT median was statistically higher in patients with I/N compared to those patients with normal intestine: 4.13 (13.9) vs. 0.11 (0.28) ng/ml, p=<0.001. A PCT threshold >1.17 ng/ml for predicting I/N yielded a sensitivity of 90%, a specificity of 97%, a Positive Predictive Value (PPV) of 95%, a Negative Predictive Value (NPV) of 94%, p=<0.001, Relative Risk (RR) 17.57 (95% CI, 4.54-67.90). Similarly, a PCT threshold >1.41 ng/ml for predicting intestinal necrosis yielded a sensitivity of 92%, a specificity of 88%, a PPV of 72%, a NPV of 97%, p=<0.001, RR 28.16 (95% CI, 3.98-119.12).

Conclusion: This study corroborates the association of PCT with IN in children with IO and expands the evidence of its use in this field. Similarly, suggests a PCT threshold >1.17 ng/ml and >1.41 for predicting IN and intestinal necrosis respectively.