Serum Endocan Levels in Children with Community-Acquired Pneumonia

In this study, it was aimed to compare the levels of serum endocan with commonly used markers, and also to define the suitability for determination of disease severity in patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). The study included 60 patients and 28 healthy subjects. Pneumonia severity was determined according to British Thoracic Society guidelines for the management of CAP in children. Serum levels of endocan and C-reactive protein (CRP) and white blood cell (WBC), and neutrophil count were measured. Serum endocan levels were increased in patients with CAP. CRP levels, WBC count, neutrophil count and neutrophil lymphocyte ratio were also higher in the CAP group than healthy control group. Endocan was correlated with CRP and WBC count and disease severity. For the identification of CAP, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of CRP was acceptable for CRP, but not for endocan (0.812 and 0.649, respectively). ROC analysis for endocan to differentiate between severe CAP (n = 29) and mild-moderate CAP (n = 31) gave an area under the curve of 0.769 compared to 0.667 for CRP. Serum endocan levels increase in patients with CAP and can therefore be a useful marker in diagnosis and as a particular indicator of the treatment in the clinical assessment of CAP disease severity. Serum endocan levels of patients with severe CAP were higher compared with patients with mild-moderate CAP. These results revealed that endocan might be a useful indicator of severity of CAP.