Tackling Neonatal Sepsis—Can It Be Predicted?

Špela But, Brigita Celar and Petja Fister ()
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Špela But: Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Brigita Celar: Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Petja Fister: Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-13

Abstract: (1) Background: Early signs of sepsis in a neonate are often subtle and non-specific, the clinical course rapid and fulminant. The aim of our research was to analyse diagnostic markers for neonatal sepsis and build an application which could calculate its probability. (2) Methods: A retrospective clinical study was conducted on 497 neonates treated at the Clinical Department of Neonatology of the University Children’s Hospital in Ljubljana from 2007 to 2021. The neonates with a diagnosis of sepsis were separated based on their blood cultures, clinical and laboratory markers. The influence of perinatal factors was also observed. We trained several machine-learning models for prognosticating neonatal sepsis and used the best-performing model in our application. (3) Results: Thirteen features showed highest diagnostic importance: serum concentrations of C-reactive protein and procalcitonin, age of onset, immature neutrophil and lymphocyte percentages, leukocyte and thrombocyte counts, birth weight, gestational age, 5-min Apgar score, gender, toxic changes in neutrophils, and childbirth delivery. The created online application predicts the probability of sepsis by combining the data values of these features. (4) Conclusions: Our application combines thirteen most significant features for neonatal sepsis development and predicts the probability of sepsis in a neonate.

Keywords: neonate; sepsis; infection; diagnostic markers of infection; C-reactive protein; procalcitonin; prediction of sepsis; application for predicting neonatal sepsis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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