Sepsis Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Sepsis, including details on septicemia, diagnosis, symptoms, treatment.

Newer approaches to the diagnosis of early onset neonatal sepsis.

Mishra UK, Jacobs SE, Doyle LW, Garland SM

Newborn Services, Royal Women's Hospital, Victoria, Australia.

Accurate and timely diagnosis of early onset neonatal sepsis remains challenging to the clinician and the laboratory. A test with a rapid turnaround time with 100% sensitivity, rather than high specificity, which allows accurate diagnosis and appropriate antimicrobial treatment or which allows antibiotics to be safely withheld in non-infected infants, is desirable. Many potential markers (acute phase reactants, cell surface markers, cytokines) are not routinely available to the laboratory, and most likely combinations of markers will ensure greater diagnostic accuracy. In the future, molecular biology techniques offer the prospect of rapid identification of both pathogens and antimicrobial resistance markers.

Published 24 April 2006 in Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed, 91(3): F208-12.
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