Vol. 5, Issue 1, Part A (2023)

Background: Late onset neonatal pneumonia (LONP) must be diagnosed accurately and promptly if we are to accurately assess the disease's prevalence, create better strategies for preventing and treating it, and ultimately find a cure. The combined measurement of C- reactive protein (CRP) and mean platelet volume (MPV) could be useful in determining if a patient has bacterial or viral infection and in estimating the likelihood of complications from either. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the usefulness of CRP in saliva (sCRP) and MPV in the identification of LONP.
Methods: This prospective case control research was carried out on 60 full‐term neonates. The neonates were classified into 2 equal groups: Group a: included 30 neonates with LONP. Group b: included 30 healthy control neonates. All patients were subjected to thorough medical history taking and physical examination as well as measurement of salivary and serum CRP and complete blood picture for assessment of MPV.
Results: MPV, sCRP, serum CRP and serum CRP / MPV are statistically significant predictors of LONP cases. SCRP at a cutoff value >3.2 is a statistically significant predictor of serum CRP> 6 in patient groups. A stastistically notable positive link between salivary and serum CRP concentrations (r = 0.476, p≤ 0.05), the research also showed significant link between serum CRP and MPV (r = 0.547, P = 0.002). There was a statistically evident link between sCRP and MPV concentrations in the pneumonic group (r =0.507, p≤ 0.05) in diagnosis of LONP. CRP/MPV ratio as predictor for diagnosis of LONP cases, was a statistically significant predictor at a cutoff value >0.6.
Conclusions: Late-onset neonatal pneumonia may be diagnosed non-invasively with CRP and MPV in the saliva. The ratio of C-reactive protein to mean platelet volume (MPV) is easy to compute and has the potential to serve as a straightforward and reliable biomarker for the identification of late-onset neonatal sepsis.