Correlation of immature granulocyte with immature to total neutrophil ratio manual and procalcitonin in early onset neonatal sepsis

BACKGROUND: Detecting neonatal sepsis at an early stage is crucial, and ongoing research aims to discover new parameters that can aid in diagnosis. Patients with early onset neonatal sepsis exhibit an increase in Immature granulocyte% (IG%). Nevertheless, studies examining the correlation between IG% and markers for diagnosing neonatal sepsis, such as the immature to total neutrophil (I/T) ratio and procalcitonin, are still limited. This research aims to determine the association between manual I/T ratio and procalcitonin with IG% in newborns with early-onset sepsis.METHODS: This is an analytical study based on the laboratory test results involving 86 early-onset neonatal sepsis patients between April and June 2022. IG% was measured using an optical flow cytometry method, the I/T ratio was manually calculated from peripheral blood smear, and procalcitonin was determined by chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (CMIA).RESULTS: This study showed that the median (minimum-maximum) value of IG% was 1.40 (0.04-8.00), manual I/T ratio was 0.09 (0.01-0.34) and procalcitonin was 0.33 (0.04-8.00). Data analysis using Spearman correlations showed the association between IG% with manual I/T ratio (r=0.312; P=0.003) and procalcitonin (r=0.315; P=0.003).CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant correlation between IG% with manual I/T ratio and procalcitonin in early-onset neonatal sepsis patients.