Changes and significances of vascular endothelial cadherin, procalcitonin in serum and cerebrospinal fluid of children with viral encephalitis or bacterial meningitis

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 0.05). 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. Key words: Viral encephalitis; Bacterial meningitis; Vascular endothelial cadherin; Procalcitonin