December 2024, Volume 2, Issue 12

Author

Khushwant Kaur, Varughese PV, Ruby Singh and Nidhie Shajan

Abstract

Background: Sepsis in the newborn population is one of the major cause of mortality and morbidity globally. Clinical symptoms and signs give clue for diagnosis of neonatal infection along with various diagnostics methods. This study aims to evaluate neonatal platelet parameters as early and inexpensive tool for diagnosing neonatal sepsis. Methods: This was a retrospective study, where 60 neonates with symptoms and signs of sepsis were enrolled and equally distributed into group 1 as neonates whose blood culture was sterile and septic screen was negative and group 2 as the ones with blood culture positive bacteremia. In enrolled neonates with suspected sepsis, before starting antibiotics, septic screen, platelets parameters were noted and MPV/TPC ratio was calculated. Clinical characteristics like need for vasopressor, need of ventilation and duration of NICU stay along with final outcome during hospitalisation were also noted. Results: The culture proven sepsis group had total platelet count significantly on lower side of normal (1.94 ± 0.70) and high MPV/TPC ratio (4.91 ± 2.14) along with increased need for vasopressor, ventilation and prolonged stay in NICU (P-value of 0.001). The cut off value ?5.032 of MPV/TPC ratio had specificity of 96.67%, PPV of 92.31%, sensitivity of 40%, NPV of 61.7% and diagnostic accuracy of 68.33%. Conclusion: This study concludes that the investigative utility of MPV/TPC surpasses that of TPC or MPV alone in offering enhanced accuracy in early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis.