Early-Onset Neonatal Sepsis

Despite the great progress made in neonatal and perinatal medicine over the last couple of decades, sepsis remains one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality. Sepsis in pediatric population was defined at the Pediatric Sepsis Consensus Conference in 2005. There is still no consensus on the definition of neonatal sepsis. Neonatal sepsis is a sepsis that occurs in the neonatal period. According to the time of occurrence, neonatal sepsis can be of early onset, when it occurs within the first 72 hours of birth and results from vertical transmission, and of late onset, in which the source of infection is found most often in the environment and occurs after the third day of life. The most common causes of early-onset sepsis are Group B Streptococcus (GBS) and E. coli. Risk factors can be mother-related and newborn-related. Clinical symptoms and signs of sepsis are quite unspecific. The dysfunction of different organs may imitate sepsis. On the other hand, infectious and non-infectious factors may exist simultaneously. The start of the antimicrobial therapy in any newborn with suspected sepsis should not be delayed. Pentoxifylline may have potential benefits in preterm newborns with sepsis. The only proven intervention that has been shown to reduce the risk of early-onset neonatal sepsis is intrapartum intravenous antibiotic administration to prevent GBS infection. It is still a great challenge to discontinue antibiotic treatment in non-infected newborns as soon as possible, because any extended antibiotic use may later be associated with other pathological conditions.