Publication:

Study of C - reactive protein in neonatal sepsis

Background Sepsis is one of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality in the newborn. Early diagnosis and treatment is vital to improve outcome. Neonatal sepsis in newborn is characterized by paucity of signs and symptoms and is due to invasion and spread through the body of non-pathogenic/ pathogenic & Gram positive / negative organism. It is subtle disease, the general characteristic of bacterial infection in neonatal period are influenced more by response of the infant than the causative organism. The present study was therefore carried out to determine the usefulness of C-reactive protein (CRP) for evaluation of neonatal sepsis in tertiary care hospital.

Methods Neonates with clinical suspicion of sepsis were prospectively studied out from June 2006 to January 2008. Blood was obtained from each subject recruited for the qualitative estimation of CRP. Blood culture was used as gold standard for diagnosis of NNS.

Results Of 50 neonates studied, 34 (68%) had positive CRP while 31 (62%) had positive blood culture. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of CRP were 90.32%, 42.10%, 71.79% and 72.72% respectively.

Conclusions The qualitative method of estimating CRP which is cheap and rapid has moderate sensitivity, specificity and negative predictive value.