Author:
Arun Babu Thirunavukkarasu,Shankaralingappa Arundhathi,Vijayadevagaran Vijayasankar,Sharmila Vijayan,Kalidoss Vinoth Kumar
Abstract
Abstract
Background
Neonatal sepsis is a clinical syndrome characterized by signs and symptoms of infection with or without accompanying bacteremia in neonatal period. Most of neonatal sepsis-related morbidity and mortality can be prevented by early diagnosis and treatment with appropriate antimicrobial agents. Micro-erythrocyte sedimentation rate (m-ESR) is a simple, inexpensive, and rapid screening test for neonatal sepsis that can be done even in resource limited setups.
Objectives
To compare the efficacy of m-ESR with C-reactive protein (CRP) as a screening tool in neonatal sepsis.
Methodology
A retrospective chart-based analysis was done in division of neonatology, of our tertiary care hospital over a period of 21 months. A total of 202 suspected cases of neonatal sepsis with documented CRP and micro-ESR values were included. We evaluated the role of micro-ESR as a screening tool in neonatal sepsis in comparison with CRP. The validity and reliability of micro-ESR in comparison to CRP were estimated and its sensitivity, specificity, positive, and negative predictive value to diagnose sepsis were calculated.
Results
There was a significant correlation between micro-ESR and CRP with a moderate degree of agreement, especially in ‘late onset sepsis’ group. The overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of micro-ESR were 67%, 84%, 58%, and 89% respectively.
Conclusion
Micro-ESR is a simple, inexpensive test comparable to CRP in screening for neonatal sepsis.
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference18 articles.
1. Sankar MJ, Agarwal R, Deorari AK, Paul VK (2008) Sepsis in the newborn. Indian J Pediatr 75(3):67–72
2. Jasani B, Kannan S, Nanavati R, Gogtay NJ, Thatte U (2016) An audit of colistin use in neonatal sepsis from a tertiary care centre of a resource-limited country. Indian J Med Res 144(3):433–439. https://doi.org/10.4103/0971-5916.198682
3. Kolhe S, Mahajan P, Siddiqui S, Sharma A, Rai R (2017) Evaluation of efficacy of septic screen in diagnosis of early onset sepsis. Indian J Child Health 4(3):405–408
4. Kafle R, Yadav J, Gupta BK, Gupta BK (2019) Role of micro ESR in the evaluation of neonatal sepsis. J Universal Coll Med Sci 7(2):25–29. https://doi.org/10.3126/jucms.v7i2.27131
5. Bhat YR, Rao A (2010) The performance of haematological screening parameters and CRP in early onset neonatal infections. J Clin Diagn Res 4:3331–3336