ABSTRACT
Background: Neonatal sepsis forms the second most common cause of neonatal mortality resulting in more than one million neonatal deaths per year. Neonatal sepsis, pneumonia and meningitis together result in one- fourth of all newborn deaths. Objectives of the study was to correlate sepsis markers with blood culture in neonatal sepsis.Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in the NICU unit under department of Pediatrics, between November 2017 and May 2019. Sample size was 50. Babies admitted to NICU with clinical suspicion of sepsis were included in the study. Blood samples from these babies were collected under aseptic precautions and subjected to rapid diagnostic tests- sepsis markers and blood culture.Results: Male were predominant (64%). Important risk factors were preterm and low birth weight. Blood culture positivity was 20% (E. coli being most commonly isolated organism). CRP had a high sensitivity of 90% and low specificity of 47%. Procalcitonin had highest sensitivity of 100% and low specificity of 47.5%.Conclusions: CRP and PCT were found to be statistically significant (p=0.036 and 0.01), can be used as a diagnostic tool in neonatal sepsis.