Meningitis In Newborns With Late-Onset Sepsis; A Critical Insight

Objective: To determine the frequency of meningitis in neonates with late-onset sepsis Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Hameed Latif Teaching Hospital, Lahore from March 2023 to August 2023. 210 neonates were enrolled through non-probability consecutive sampling. After obtaining written informed consent from parents, all septic neonates who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study. In each neonate with clinical features of sepsis, a detailed history and examination were done. Meningitis was labelled in the neonates whose CSF findings were suggestive of meningitis. Cranial ultrasound was done in all neonates with meningitis to rule out any complication.Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 23.Data was stratified for age,weight,gestational age and gender to deal with effect modifiers.For post stratification,Chi-square test was applied to see the significance.A p-value ≤0.05 was considered as significant. Results: A total of 210 children presenting with late-onset sepsis were included. Among these children 122(58.1%) were males, while 88(41.9%) were females. The age range in this study was from 7 to 28 days with mean age of 17.7±6.3 days. It was found that out of 210 neonates with late-onset sepsis,47(22.4%) had meningitis. Conclusion: The frequency of meningitis in patients with late-onset neonatal sepsis is quite high. Meningitis is a deadly disease which is associated with lifelong morbidity and sometimes mortality. Therefore screening for neonatal meningitis should be done in all patients afflicted by neonatal sepsis.