European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background: Neonatal sepsis is defined as an invasive bacterial infection which occurs in the first 4 weeks of life. During the last decades efforts have been made to improve the laboratory diagnosis of neonatal sepsis by studying a large variety of inflammatory markers with diverse success. Some of these markers, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and, more recently, procalcitonin (PCT) have been implemented in diagnosis of neonatal sepsis. Objectives : to compare procalictonin and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels with blood culture as gold standard in early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis. Material & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of a tertiary institute from January 2020 to June 2021 including all term newborns with clinical features of sepsis. The specimen of blood was obtained from each neonate prior to commencement of the antibiotic with in first 24 hours of birth for the sepsis workup which included complete blood count, blood culture, C-reactive protein(CRP) and procalcitonin(PCT). Results: Among 143 newborns, male predominance was seen with 82 (57.3%) males and 61 (42.7%) females. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, PLR and NLR of CRP was 56.25%, 69.62%, 60%, 75.95%, 1.85, 0.63 respectively which was lower than the Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, PLR and NLR of PCT i.e. 84.38%, 81.1%, 78.26% ,82.52%, 4.44 and 0.19 respectively. Conclusion : PCT shows higher sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV as compared to CRP in early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis.