Abstract
Backround: Interstitial lung diseases (ILD) are a heterogenic group of diseases requires several hospital admission due to infective or noninfective exacerbation during its progress.
Objective: We aimed to evaluate correlations between C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and clinical parameters of patients during hospitalization of acute exacerbation of diffuse interstitial lung diseases to predict in hospital risks of diseases.
Method:A retrospective analyzes of 184 patients who hospitalized for diffuse ILD in Pulmonary Department between 2010-2013 was conducted.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 62 and 51% were female . The 66% of patients had other comorbid conditions. Eleven patients also had collagen vascular diseases. In 48 patients, cultures for sputum, stool, urine or blood were positive and 43% of the whole case series had antibiotic treatment. Mean duration of hospitalization for the patients was 11 days. In 143 patients serum CRP levels were obtained and divided to two group as CRP <0.5mg/dL and CRP ≥0.5mg/dL. In 119 cases serum CRP levels were ≥0.5mg/dL. In high CRP group, mean age was older(p=0.01), level of procalcitonin were higher(p=0.03), and length of hospitalization period was longer(p=0.03)and the percentage of patients with positive gram staining in samples were higher(p=0.04). Between high or low CRP groups there was not any significant difference in cultures, in-hospital mortality, in arterial blood gases and other biochemical parameters in admission.
Conclusion: Therefore we come to the conclusion that in ILD patients with high CRP and procalcitonin levels an infective processes should be suspected and longer duration of hospitalization should is awaited.
- © 2014 ERS