RESUMO
Objective: The present study was conducted to evaluate the role of presepsin as an early and rapid predictor of bacterial infection in newborn infants
Methods: This study was carried out on 50 preterm newborn infants with clinically suspected early onset sepsis admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit at Alexandria University Maternity Hospital, All studied newborns were subjected to History taking, detailed physical examination and sepsis work -up, including complete blood count, blood culture, CRP, CSF analysis if indicated and quantitative measurement of preseason
Results: The mean birth weight of the studied newborn infants was 1520 g and the mean gestational age was 32.7 weeks with no statistically significant difference as regard the preseason results. Virginities was the main maternal risk factor for EOS, present in 80 % of the studied newborn infants. The majority of cases of positive culture for Klebsiella were negative for preseason, and this was statistically significant, Presence of toxic granules had the highest incidence among laboratory markers in the CBC in the studied group, Preseason was positive in 48% of newborns and the mean value of preseason was 1397.6 ng/L, Most cases with positive initial CRP readings were positive for preseason and this was statistically significant. There was no significant difference in preseason results as regard clinical score, total laboratory score and both laboratory and clinical scores. All cases that had meningitis were positive for preseason, and most cases that didn't have meningitis were negative for preseason and this was statistically significant. There was no statistically significant difference between preseason results and duration till admission, Apgar score or hospital stay
Conclusion: We concluded that preseason is a useful, quickly and easily performed marker for diagnosis of neonatal, sepsis. Its results are comparable to the CRP and seemed to be superior to conventional CBC tests. Furthermore, presepsin is a promising prognostic marker that could identify high risk newborns to severe sepsis, but it may not be elevated in response to infections caused by organisms like Klebsiella