International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences | April 2017 | Vol 5 | Issue 4 Page 1662 International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences Sonawane VB et al. Int J Res Med Sci. 2017 Apr;5(4):1662-1666 www.msjonline.org pISSN 2320-6071 | eISSN 2320-6012 Original Research Article Comparison between sepsis markers and blood culture in diagnosis of neonatal sepsis: a prospective study Vijay Baburao Sonawane*, Nitin Mehkarkar, Sonali Gaikwad, Nitin Kadam INTRODUCTION Neonatal Septicemia is one of the commonest causes of neonatal mortality and morbidity. Accurate and timely diagnosis of neonatal sepsis remains a major challenge to the pediatricians and neonatologists. According to national neonatal perinatal database (NNPD) 2000 neonatal sepsis is the most common cause of deaths in the country followed by prematurity and birth asphyxia. 1,2 Early treatment is possible with the support of certain indirect markers such as neutropenia (<1800 cells/mm 3 ), leucopenia (<5000 cells/mm 3 ), band cells, micro ESR and C-reactive protein (CRP) which are collectively known as sepsis screen and aids in early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis in absence of negative blood cultures. 3-5 Thus, in presence of high risk factors; early clinical suspicion, combined with sepsis screen will detect neonatal septicemia earlier which will enable the paediatricians to treat the infection timely and thus reduce neonatal morbidity and mortality. 6,7 In the present study, correlation between sepsis screening and blood culture in neonate presenting with features of sepsis is done to accelerate the diagnostic process and blood culture (considered gold standard) was evaluated for sepsis detection and its effectiveness was compared with other septic markers. Aim of the study was to study of comparison between sepsis screening and blood culture (considered Gold standard) in diagnosis of neonatal Sepsis also to evaluate effectiveness of various sepsis markers. ABSTRACT Background: Neonatal septicaemia is one of the commonest causes of neonatal mortality and morbidity. Accurate and timely diagnosis of neonatal sepsis remains a major challenge to the pediatricians and neonatologists. In the present study, correlation between sepsis screening and blood culture in neonate presenting with features of sepsis is done to accelerate the diagnostic process and blood culture (considered gold standard) was evaluated as marker for sepsis detection and its effectiveness was compared with other septic markers. Methods: In present study, we emphasize to study early indicators of sepsis screen and their statistical correlation with blood culture (considered as gold standard). Results: As any sepsis screen parameters showed little correlation with blood culture, yet on combination it was found that specificity and positive predictive accuracy increased while sensitivity decreased them individual tests. Also combination of tests yield better results than single tests. Conclusions: The combination of sepsis makers yielded diagnostic results than single tests and proved to be an invaluable aid for early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis. Keywords: Blood culture, Neonatal sepsis, Sepsis screen Department of Pediatrics, Dr. D.Y. Patil University, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Received: 12 January 2017 Revised: 15 January 2017 Accepted: 23 February 2017 *Correspondence: Dr. Vijay Baburao Sonawane, E-mail: vijay_ltm@yahoo.co.in Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20171283