Neonatal leucocyte cell population data: reference intervals and relevance for detecting sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis.

Background: Timely diagnosis of neonatal sepsis is crucial but remains challenging. Cell Population Data (CPD) provide high-resolution phenotyping of leukocytes, offering potential for sepsis detection. We aimed to establish neonatal CPD reference intervals and explore their capacity to detect sepsis and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC).

Pain management in preterm infants with necrotizing enterocolitis: an international expert consensus statement.

Unlabelled: Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is probably the most painful intestinal disease affecting infants born preterm. NEC is known to cause highly severe and prolonged pain that has been associated with adverse short- and long-term effects. However, research on pain management in infants with NEC is scarce.

Absence of association between early antibiotic exposure and short-term adverse outcomes in very preterm infants: a single-center retrospective study.

Background: Antibiotics save lives but also carry significant risks, including increased antimicrobial resistance, higher healthcare costs, and disruption of the microbiome. However, the association between antibiotic exposure and short-term adverse outcomes remains uncertain. Our study aimed to evaluate whether early unnecessary antibiotic exposure in the first 7 days of life of very preterm infants is linked to short-term adverse outcomes.

Proposed Core Outcomes After Neonatal Sepsis: A Consensus Statement.

Importance: Sepsis is one of the leading causes of neonatal mortality. There is heterogeneity in the outcomes measured and reported in studies of neonatal sepsis. To address this challenge, a core outcome set (COS) for research on neonatal sepsis was needed.

Paediatric Personalized Research Network Switzerland (SwissPedHealth): a joint paediatric national data stream.

Introduction: Children represent a large and vulnerable patient group. However, the evidence base for most paediatric diagnostic and therapeutic procedures remains limited or is often inferred from adults. There is an urgency to improve paediatric healthcare provision based on real-world evidence generation.

Early detection of neonatal sepsis and reduction of overall antibiotic exposure: Towards precision medicine.

Infections claim the lives of over half a million newborns annually and expose survivors to the risk of lifelong disability. The challenge to clinicians is to identify newborns with invasive infections rapidly, promptly initiate antimicrobial treatment, and take measures to prevent and treat organ dysfunction. Moreover, excessive antibiotic use is a global public health problem.

Antibiotic exposure for culture-negative early-onset sepsis in late-preterm and term newborns: an international study.

Background: Early-life antibiotic exposure is disproportionately high compared to the burden of culture-proven early-onset sepsis (CP-EOS). We assessed the contribution of culture-negative cases to the overall antibiotic exposure in the first postnatal week.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis across eleven countries in Europe, North America, and Australia.

Sepsis shapes the human γδ TCR repertoire in an age- and pathogen-dependent manner.

Sepsis affects 25 million children per year globally, leading to 2.9 million deaths and substantial disability in survivors. Extensive characterization of interactions between the host and bacteria in children is required to design novel preventive and therapeutic strategies tailored to this age group.

The changing clinical presentation of COVID-19 in children during the course of the pandemic.

Aim: To investigate the evolution of clinical symptoms of COVID-19 in children throughout the pandemic.

Methods: In this national prospective surveillance study, symptoms in children hospitalised with COVID-19 were collected from all paediatric hospitals in Switzerland between March 2020 and March 2023. Data was analysed across four time periods, according to the predominantly circulating SARS-CoV-2 variant: T1 (wild-type), T2 (Alpha), T3 (Delta) and T4 (Omicron), as well as by age group.

Dysregulated monocyte-derived macrophage response to Group B in newborns.

Introduction: (Group B , GBS) is a leading pathogen of neonatal sepsis. The host-pathogen interactions underlying the progression to life-threatening infection in newborns are incompletely understood. Macrophages are first line in host defenses against GBS, contributing to the initiation, amplification, and termination of immune responses.

Organ Dysfunction in Children With Blood Culture-Proven Sepsis: Comparative Performance of Four Scores in a National Cohort Study.

Objectives: Previous studies applying Sepsis-3 criteria to children were based on retrospective analyses of PICU cohorts. We aimed to compare organ dysfunction criteria in children with blood culture-proven sepsis, including emergency department, PICU, and ward patients, and to assess relevance of organ dysfunctions for mortality prediction.

Design: We have carried out a nonprespecified, secondary analysis of a prospective dataset collected from September 2011 to December 2015.

Sensitivity of ICD coding for sepsis in children-a population-based study.

Background: International Classification of Diseases 10th edition (ICD-10) is widely used to describe the burden of disease.

Aim: To describe how well ICD-10 coding captures sepsis in children admitted to the hospital with blood culture-proven bacterial or fungal infection and systemic inflammatory response syndrome.

Methods: Secondary analysis of a population-based, multicenter, prospective cohort study on children with blood culture-proven sepsis of nine tertiary pediatric hospitals in Switzerland.

Game changer or gimmick: inflammatory markers to guide antibiotic treatment decisions in neonatal early-onset sepsis.

Background: The diagnosis of neonatal early-onset sepsis (EOS) is challenging, and inflammatory markers are widely used to guide decision-making and therapies.

Objectives: This narrative review presents the current state of knowledge regarding the diagnostic value and potential pitfalls in the interpretation of inflammatory markers for EOS.

Sources: PubMed until October 2022 and searched references in identified articles using the search terms: neonatal EOS, biomarker or inflammatory marker, and antibiotic therapy or antibiotic stewardship.

Analysis of Antibiotic Exposure and Early-Onset Neonatal Sepsis in Europe, North America, and Australia.

Importance: Appropriate use of antibiotics is life-saving in neonatal early-onset sepsis (EOS), but overuse of antibiotics is associated with antimicrobial resistance and long-term adverse outcomes. Large international studies quantifying early-life antibiotic exposure along with EOS incidence are needed to provide a basis for future interventions aimed at safely reducing neonatal antibiotic exposure.

Objective: To compare early postnatal exposure to antibiotics, incidence of EOS, and mortality among different networks in high-income countries.

Fetal Omphalocele: Review of Predictive Factors Important for Antenatal Counseling?

Importance: Congenital omphalocele is among the most common antenatally diagnosed anomalies. As additional abnormalities are found in majority of cases, antenatal investigations target the search for additional structural anomalies and genetic disorders, including aneuploidy. Antenatal management focuses on the assessment of fetal well-being.

Serum Ascorbic Acid and Thiamine Concentrations in Sepsis: Secondary Analysis of the Swiss Pediatric Sepsis Study.

Objectives: To determine circulating levels of ascorbic acid (VitC) and thiamine (VitB1) in neonates and children with blood culture-proven sepsis.

Design: Nested single-center study of neonates and children prospectively included in the Swiss Pediatric Sepsis Study.

Setting: One tertiary care academic hospital.

Neonatal sepsis: a systematic review of core outcomes from randomised clinical trials.

Background: The lack of a consensus definition of neonatal sepsis and a core outcome set (COS) proves a substantial impediment to research that influences policy and practice relevant to key stakeholders, patients and parents.

Methods: A systematic review of the literature was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. In the included studies, the described outcomes were extracted in accordance with the provisions of the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials (COMET) handbook and registered.

Neonates and COVID-19: state of the art : Neonatal Sepsis series.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had a significant impact worldwide, particularly in middle- and low-income countries. While this impact has been well-recognized in certain age groups, the effects, both direct and indirect, on the neonatal population remain largely unknown. There are placental changes associated, though the contributions to maternal and fetal illness have not been fully determined.