Preferable Antibiotics for Neonatal Sepsis

A recent survey (see Figure 1) of antibiotic sensitivity of various organisms in our microbiology laboratory has raised a serious doubt in my mind as to the security most people may feel in treating neonatal sepsis with a combination of ampicillin and kanamycin. Since the majority of neonatal sepsis is secondary to gram negative organisms, particularly E. coli, our finding that 66.6% of E. coli were sensitive to kanamycin and 63.7% to ampicillin was bothersome.