Evaluation of interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein in the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis

The early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis is a difficult task and have prompted neonatologists to evaluate adjunctive tests to improve the identification of septic infants, while awaiting culture results. The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of IL-6 and CRP determination, in the first 24h after the onset of the clinical signs, for the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis. We enrolled prospectively 89 newborn infants, 20 with "proven sepsis", 23 with "suspected sepsis", and 46 healthy neonates. The sensitivity of these markers was 90%, specificity 84,8%, V-PP 72% and VPN 95,1%. The best cutoff point determined by ROC curves was 30pg/ml for IL-6 determinations and 6mg/L for CRP. We concluded that the combined use of IL-6 and CRP has a good accuracy for the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis.