Calcitonin gene-related peptide and its correlation with prognosis in severe pneumonia among children below 6 years at PICU of Al Zahraa university hospital.

Pneumonia is known to be the biggest cause of death in children younger than five years old. In pulmonary diseases such as pulmonary arterial hypertension, asthma, acute lung injury, and pulmonary fibrosis, calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP) has been linked to the regulation of inflammation, proliferation, and fibrosis. However, its ability to foretell the emergence of severe pneumonia is questionable. We aimed to determine whether blood levels of CGRP correlate with the outcome of critically ill children. This case-control study included 45 children with severe pneumonia admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit and 45 children with matched age and sex as controls. We investigated the serum level of CGRP as well as routine laboratory investigations of both groups. The CGRP level was lower in the patient group with median of 77 ng/L ranged from 55 to 183 as compared to control group with median of 230 ng/L ranged from 133 to 664 (p≤0.001). Also, CGRP level was significantly higher in the survived group with median of 96.1 ng/L ranged from 55 to 183 than the non-survived group with median of 63.4 ng/L ranged from 55.5 to 120.9 (p=0.022). In conclusion, we found that serum level of CGRP was extremely low in critical and extremely critically ill patients, and thus can be used as a predictor of mortality in children with severe pneumonia.