A CORRELATIVE STUDY OF C–REACTIVE PROTEIN WITH BLOOD CULTURE AND SENSITIVITY IN NEONATAL SEPSIS

Dr. N L Narasimha Rao; Dr. Manohar Bekkam; Dr Kurra Deepika

Volume : VIII, Issue : VI, June - 2019

A CORRELATIVE STUDY OF C–REACTIVE PROTEIN WITH BLOOD CULTURE AND SENSITIVITY IN NEONATAL SEPSIS

Dr. N L Narasimha Rao, Dr. Manohar Bekkam, Dr Kurra Deepika

Abstract :

Background :. Neonatal sepsis is clinical syndrome of bacteremia characterized by systemic signs and symptoms of infection in the first month of life. It continues to remain a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. It can be diagnosed by blood culture but it is time consuming. So, a reliable marker like CRP is needed for the early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis so that early treatment can be initiated. Methods: This prospective study was conducted in the Department of Pediatrics, Alluri sitarama raju academy of medical sciences, Eluru from November 2017 to October 2018. The blood sample was collected from 68 clinically suspected cases of neonatal sepsis admitted in the NICU constituted material for the study. Results: CRP is positive in 47 (69%) of cases with clinical sepsis. Blood culture is positive in 22(32.4%) of neonates with clinical sepsis. CRP‟s true positive in 21 out of 22 cases of culture positivity cases false positive in 26 out of 46 culture negative cases carrying sensitivity of 95.45%, specificity of 43.45% with PPV of 44.68% and NPV of 95.24% With analysis of levels of CRP values with prediction of culture positivity it is found that with increasing levels of CRP the positivity of blood culture increases and it carries P value 0.00 which issignificant. Conclusion : CRP have high sensitive and good negative predictive value. So CRP can be used as early and predictable screening test for the early diagnosis of neonatalsepsis.