The values of serum cytokines in chronic lung disease in newborn

Abstract

Chronic lung disease in the newborn is a complication of mechanical ventilation. The diagnosis of chronic lung disease is made in children of over 36 post-conceptual weeks' age who still require additional oxygen and who have abnormal chest x-ray findings. This study was aimed at triaging newborns at risk of developing chronic lung disease. The operating study hypothesis was that the values of insulin-like growth factor I below 30 microg/L in the 33rd post-conceptual week were associated with the development of chronic lung disease. The above hypothesis was verified by a cohort, prospective study, which included preterm newborns of 33 gestational weeks' age or less who were hospitalised at the Department of Neonatology of the Clinical Centre of Montenegro from Aril 2008 to July 2009. The blood sample was taken in the 33rd post-conceptual week and the insulin-like growth factor value was determined by the method of enzyme immunoassay. Our study results confirmed the theory of statistically significant correlation of the length of pregnancy and birth body weight with insulin-like growth factor serum level. We did not find any statistically significant correlation between the insulin-like growth factor serum value and chronic lung disease in the newborn. It is possible that the insulin-like growth factor has a different role at various stages of pathogenesis of diseases of prematurity. We believe that by correcting the term for determining the levels we can get a significant correlation between low values of insulin-like growth factor -1 and chronic lung disease.