Background: Acute respiratory distress (ARD) is a critical respiratory failure due to lung injury of neonates leading to the clinical appearance of poor lung compliance. The aimed of the study was to evaluate the diagnostic values in differentiating respiratory from heart diseases with using of N-terminal pro brain natriuretic peptide (NT-pro BNP) and Atrial natriuretic peptide(ANP) in neonates.
Material and Methods: Ninety  neonates  randomly collected from those who hospitalized in the neonate ward of the Ali Ebne abitalib Hospital, Zahedan, Iran .After taking blood samples ANP and NT pro Brian Natriuretic peptide using ELISA kit were measured. The separated serum was kept in -20 °C until BNP measurement. 250 μl of the patients’ serum was isolated to assess pro BNP level using ELISA kit (USA). Data were analyzed using SPSS- 20 with considering of P< 0.05.
Results: NT pro-BNP level had the highest in cardiac patients and followed by respiratory. The level of NT pro-BNP for control neonates had the lowest. These levels had significant variation (P<0.05). The level of ANP had the lowest for the cardiac patients. ANP level had the lowest for the acyanotic.  NT pro-BNP had the highest concentration in acyanotic patients and and had the second highest concentration in cyanotic. Respiratory diseases ranked in the third levels in concentration of pro-BNP. The level of NT pro-BNP had the lowest for controls.  The analysis showed a significant difference in the level of NT pro-BNP (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Many studies revealed that NT pro-BNP cannot be used as a tool for differentiation between cardiac and respiratory as a cause of respiratory distress during neonate, but the results of the present study showed that it would be good biomarker.