The usefulness of the buffy coat smear and panbacterial polymerase chain reaction in early diagnosis of neonatal sepsis.

Objective: In this study are evaluated the usefulness of the buffy coat smear and panbacterial polymerase chain reaction (PCR) as diagnostic tests in the early detection of neonatal sepsis.

Material And Methods: It was studied 49 patients aged up to 28 days who were hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit (ICUs) of the Neonatology, with a clinical diagnosis of neonatal sepsis and 49 umbilical cord samples of healthy newborns. Blood cultures and 50 microL of plasma were taken for the DNA and performance of the broad-range PCR primer system (panbacterial PCR).