Diagnostic value of neutrophil CD64 combined with CRP for neonatal sepsis: A meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Sepsis is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in newborns. CD64 combined with c-reactive protein (CRP) could improve the sensitivity and specificity of neonatal sepsis diagnosis, but the results were still controversial. Therefore, this meta-analysis was conducted to clarify the importance of CD64 combined with CRP in the diagnosis of neonatal sepsis.

METHODS: The researches published as of December 24, 2018 were comprehensively searched in PubMed, Embase (included Embase and Medline), the Cochrane Library and Web of Science. Totally, 8 articles were included, involving 1114 objects. Statistical calculations were performed using Stata14.0 and Review Manager 5.3.

RESULTS: The diagnostic accuracy of all included studies was pooled as follows: sensitivity, 0.95 (95% CI: 0.86-0.98); specificity, 0.86 (95% CI: 0.74-0.93); positive likelihood ratio (PLR), 6.8 (95% CI: 3.50-13.20); negative likelihood ratio (NLR), 0.06 (95% CI: 0.02-0.18); diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), 118.0 (95% CI: 25.00-549.00), and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.96 (95% CI: 0.94-0.97). It was found that heterogeneity was not caused by threshold effect (P = 0.16), but the results of sensitivity (I2  = 87.57%) and specificity (I2  = 89.07%) analyses indicated significant heterogeneity between studies.

CONCLUSIONS: The combined application of CD64 and CRP improved the accuracy of neonatal sepsis diagnosis.