Biomarkers estimating baseline mortality risk for neonatal sepsis: nPERSEVERE: neonate-specific sepsis biomarker risk model.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Prognostic biomarker research neonatal sepsis is lacking. We assessed the utility of a validated pediatric prognostic tool called PERSEVERE II that uses decision tree methodology to predict mortality at discharge in neonates who experienced sepsis. METHODS: Prospective study in a dual-center cohort of neonates with sepsis admitted between June 2020 and December 2021. Biomarker analysis was done on serum samples obtained at the time of evaluation for the event. RESULTS: In a cohort of 59 neonates with a mortality rate of 15.3%, PERSEVERE II was 67% sensitive and 59% specific for mortality, p 0.27. Amongst PERSEVERE II biomarkers, IL-8 showed good prognostic performance for mortality prediction with a cutoff of 300 pg/mL (sensitivity 100%, specificity 65%, negative predictive value 100%, AUC 0.87, p 0.0003). We derived a new decision tree that is neonate specific (nPERSEVERE) with improved performance compared to IL-8 (sensitivity 100%, specificity 86%, negative predictive value 100%, AUC 0.95, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: IL-8 and nPERSEVERE demonstrated good prognostic performance in a small cohort of neonates with sepsis. Moving toward precision medicine in sepsis, our study proposes an important tool for clinical trial prognostic enrichment that needs to be validated in larger studies. IMPACT Prognostic and predictive biomarker research is lacking in the newborn intensive care unit. Biomarkers can be used at the time of evaluation for neonatal sepsis (blood culture acquisition) to identify neonates with high baseline mortality risk. Stratification is an important step toward precision medicine in neonatal sepsis.