Peripheral Perfusion Index as a Marker of Sepsis in Preterm Neonates
Abstract Background: Neonatal sepsis is a major contributor to neonatal mortality in India. Blood culture, the gold standard for the diagnosis of sepsis takes 48-72 hours while the serological markers have suboptimal diagnostic test characteristics. Perfusion Index (PI) is a real time, non-invasive marker that can detect microcirculatory changes before other clinical manifestation of sepsis. Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of PI in detecting hospital-acquired sepsis before overt clinical manifestations. Material and Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of a tertiary care hospital. Participants: Term and preterm neonates admitted to NICU. Methods: PI was continuously monitored in all enrolled neonates. Clinical sepsis was defined using the Neonatal Krankenhaus-Infektions-Surveillance-System (NeoKISS). PI below 1.24 and 0.88 for term and preterm neonates, respectively, was defined as low PI. The time of fall of PI below this value and time of clinical sepsis as per NeoKISS was noted and the difference was calculated. Results: Among 72 neonates (gestational age:32.2±3.2 weeks, birth weight:1420, IQR 1100-1855 g), a total of 93 events of suspected sepsis were noted, of which 70 were sepsis screen positive. 16 events were associated with culture positive sepsis. Using a cut off of 0.88 in preterm neonates, PI yielded a sensitivity of 89.47% (95% CI 78.48% to 96.04%), specificity of 56% (95% CI 34.93% to 75.60%), positive predictive value of 82.26% (95% CI 74.70% to 87.92%), and negative predictive value of 70% (95% CI 50.36% to 84.29%) in detection of hospital acquired sepsis. The positive and negative likelihood ratios came to be 2.03 (95% CI 1.30 to 3.19) and 0.19 (95% CI 0.08 to 0.43), respectively.Conclusion: This study shows that PI might serve as an early, non-invasive marker of hospital acquired sepsis in preterm neonates.