Serum Melatonin in Early Onset Neonatal Sepsis

Document Type : New and original researches in the field of Microbiology.

Authors

1 Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

2 Department of Clinical pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Neonatal sepsis is the result of inflammatory and oxidative stress events leading to cellular oxidative damage. Endogenous melatonin is an antioxidant and free radical scavenger. The objective of this study is to evaluate serum melatonin level as a marker of early onset neonatal sepsis (EOS) in preterm infants. Methodology: Serum melatonin was measured in 20 preterm infants with EOS, and 20 healthy matched preterm controls on day1, then serum melatonin level was estimated in all patients 72 hours after the start of the empirical antibiotics. Results: There was a statistically significant positive correlation between serum melatonin and TLC, CRP, and I/T ratio (r= 0.7458, p=0.001) (r= 0.76, p = 0.01) (r= 0.758, p= 0.001) respectively after empirical antibiotic. Also, there was significant positive correlation between CRP percentage of change and serum melatonin percentage of change after antibiotics (r= 0.752, P<0.001). However, there was no statistically significant difference between patients’ initial serum melatonin level and control. Also, there was no statistically significant correlation between initial patients’ serum melatonin and initial hemoglobin, TLC, platelet count, I/T ratio, or CRP. Conclusion: Endogenous melatonin could not be used as a marker for EOS; however, it might be helpful in the follow up of preterm patients with EOS. 

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