Value of Endotracheal Tube Culture in Ventilated Septic Neonates

摘要

Objectives: to study endotracheal tube aspirate culture results and its relation to other clinical and laboratory finding Background: Sepsis is a common complication in the NICU, Mechanical ventilation plays an important role because artificial airways bypass the body's defense against inhaled pathogens and offer new routes for non airborne pathogens. . Researchers reported 50% of sepsis occurrence among infants who had respiratory tract colonization. They also found that none of the neonates who had not colonization, had sepsis. ETA culture is less invasive and results appear earlier than blood culture Materials & Methods: the study was done on 80 newborns divided into 2 groups: (40 newborn with evidence of neonatal sepsis and 40 newborn with no evidence of sepsis) and fulfilling the selection criteria of ventilation for more than 7 days. All patients in the study were subjected to adequate assessment of history, full clinical examination, complete blood count C - reactive protein, blood culture, endotracheal tube aspirate cultures and arterial blood gases monitoring. Our selected cases were subjected to clinical evaluation and to the Hematological Scoring System of Sepsis. Results: We found that Endotracheal aspirate culture is not considered a gold standard as sensitivity and specificity in detecting organisms in ventilated septic newborns are low Conclusion Blood culture is still the gold standard for detection of organisms in ventilated septic neonates Endotracheal tube aspirate cultures has a lower sensitivity & specificity.