engleski

Lab-score is a valuable predictor of serious bacterial infection in infants admitted to hospital

Parents frequently bring their children to the Emergency Department (ED) because of the fever without apparent source (FWAS). To avoid possible complications it is important to recognize serious bacterial infection (SBI) as early as possible. Various tests, including different clinical scores and scales, are used in the laboratory evaluation of patients. However, it is still impossible to predict the presence of SBI with complete certainty. Galetto-Lacour et al. developed and validated a risk index score, named Lab-score. Lab-score is based on the 3 predictive variables independently associated with SBI: PCT, CRP, and urinary dipstick. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of the Lab- score in predicting SBI in well-appearing infants ≤ 180 days of age with FWAS, who presented to ED and were hospitalized with suspicion of having SBI. Based on this study findings, WBC, CRP, PCT and lab-score ≥ 3 were confirmed as useful biomarkers for differentiation between SBI and non-SBI. Also, ROC analysis confirmed that all of them were useful for differentiation between SBI and non- SBI patients with the highest AUC calculated for the lab-score. The results of this research confirmed its value, with calculated sensitivity of 67, 7% and specificity of 98, 6% in prediction of SBI in infants aged ≤ 180 days. Its value was even better in infants aged ≤ 90 days with sensitivity of 75% and specificity of 97, 7%. In conclusion, we demonstrated the high value of lab-score in detecting SBI in infants under 6 months of age with FWAS.

infant; fever; infection; early diagnosis

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