Clinical Pediatrics: Open Access
Open Access
ISSN: 2572-0775
ISSN: 2572-0775
Ana Patricia Averilla
De La Salle University, Philippines
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Clin Pediatr
Neonatal septicemia is a clinical syndrome characterized by signs and symptoms of infection accompanied by bacteremia. Early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis is a difficult problem because clinical manifestations are non specific. Blood culture still remains the gold standard for diagnosis of neonatal sepsis, however result is not available for at least 24 hours.z The Hematologic Scoring System (HSS) by Rodwell was used in this study as a predictor for neonatal sepsis. The objective was to determine the validity of a HSS in the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis in patients (0-28 days old) admitted at our institution prospectively. All neonates admitted in the NICU and pediatric wards with clinical suspicion of neonatal sepsis. These included two groups: Group 1; patients clinical sepsis with HSS of >3 and Group 2; patients with clinical sepsis with HSS of <2. As a result, all of the hematologic scoring parameters were insignificant when compared to blood culture results. Although not significant, patients who have positive culture results have abnormalities in total WBC count, total PMN count and I:T PMN ratio. The observed sensitivity is 77.78% with specificity of 52%, with an overall accuracy rate of 58.82%. Among those, whose total score are 2 points and below, the probability of having negative culture is 86.67%. Those whose scores are >3 can predict positive culture finding only by 36 per 100 subjects. Therefore, the HSS alone cannot precisely diagnose neonatal sepsis. Blood culture is still the gold standard and should be performed in all suspected cases.