Early predictive value of lactate/albumin ratio in neonatal infants with septic shock

Objective To analyze the predictive value of lactate/albumin(L/A) ratio in neonatal infants with septic shock. Methods The data of 185 neonatal infants with sepsis from January to December 2017 were retrospective analyzed in Guangdong Women and Children Hospital.The data were divided into low level of L/A group(L/A<0.1), medium level of L/A group(0.1≤L/A<0.2) and high level of L/A group(L/A≥0.2)according to L/A ratio level within 24 hours of sepsis.The clinical features, related laboratory indications and prognosis among the 3 groups were compared.Multivariate Logistic regression was used to analyze the effects of various factors on the occurrence of neonatal septic shock.Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the early predictive va-lue of related indicators for neonatal septic shock. Results A total of 185 neonatal infants with sepsis were collected.There were 88 cases in low level of L/A group, 64 cases in medium level of L/A group and 33 cases in high level of L/A group.There were no significant difference in gender, gestational age, birth weight, 1 and 5-minute Apgar scores, small for gestational age, use of pulmonary surfactant, maternal preeclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus, maternal fever and severe meconium stained (all P>0.05). There were no statistical differences among three groups in C-reactive protein, white blood cell count, neutrophil count and proportion, leucine count and proportion and platelet count(all P>0.05). Compared with low and medium level of L/A groups, the high level of L/A group had higher proportion of cesarean section, higher procalcitonin and lactate, severe intracranial hemorrhage, periventricular leucomalacia, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, disseminated intravascular coagulation, septic shock and the dead; low level of L/A group had higher proportion of maternal premature rupture of membranes>24 hours, albumin, pH or base excess(BE), and there were statistically significant differences in all of those(all P<0.05). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that hypoalbuminemia, hyperlacticemia, decreased pH and L/A≥0.1 were independent predictors for neonatal septic shock.L/A more than 0.114 within 24 hours was associated with neonatal septic shock, with a sensitivity of 76.90% and specificity of 81.30%. Conclusions The increased of L/A within 24 hours of sepsis can be used as an independent risk factor for predicting septic shock in neonatal infants. Key words: Lactate/albumin ratio; Septic shock; Sepsis; Infants, newborn