European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

BACKGROUND: Sepsis is one of the major causes of neonatal mortality. Clinical manifestations of sepsis vary from asymptomatic to severe manifestations. Hypoxaemia is closely associated with sepsis.Aim: To identify early onset sepsis using pulse oximeter as a screening tool in asymptomatic newborns. METHODS: This study group included 240 asymptomatic newborns, and was carried out for a period of 6 months during the period of 01 January 2021 to 30 June 2021 in the Department of Paediatrics of District Hospital, Tumakuru, Karnataka State, India. The collection and processing was started after obtaining clearance from the Institutional Ethics Committee. All asymptomatic newborns in the postnatal ward of District hospital, Tumakuruborn after 35weeks of gestation were screened on two occasions using pulse oximeter. Babies whose saturation was below predefined threshold of 90% or whose repeat readings remained between 90% and 94% were considered test positives babies. They were subjected to septic work up in the form of complete blood count, C reactive protein, blood cultures and chest X-ray. All test negative babies were followed up at one week to know if they were diagnosed with sepsis in the first week of life. RESULTS:240 asymptomatic newborns were screened. Six newborns (6/240,2.5%) were tested positive and were diagnosed to have early onset sepsis. All test negative babies were followed up and none had evidence of sepsis at follow up. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that it is feasible to use pulse oximeter as a screening tool for early onset sepsis in asymptomatic newborns. Thus, pulse oximetry can serve as useful tool for screening neonates especially in low/ middle income countries.