Usefulness of urinary immune biomarkers in the evaluation of neonatal sepsis: a pilot project
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Updated: May 12, 2026
A Neonatal Imaging Model of Gram-Negative Bacterial Sepsis
Published on: August 12, 2020
Sukumar Suguna Narasimhulu1, Karen D Hendricks-Muñoz, William Borkowsky
1New York University, New York, NY 10016, USA. snsukumar@gmail.com
Objective:
Our hypothesis is that specific proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory urinary cytokines are useful in the diagnostic evaluation of risk for sepsis in term neonates. We conducted a pilot, prospective hospital-based longitudinal observational study to test the urine of term neonates with a 13 biomarker panel of cytokines.
Methods:
Infants were divided into 2 groups: The control group (n = 15) consisted of infants admitted to newborn nursery, and the test group (n = 15) consisted of infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit for presumed sepsis. Bagged urine samples were collected from 30 term neonates for testing our hypothesis.
Results:
Urinary interleukin (IL)-8 (P = .004*), inducible protein (IP)-10 (P = .007*), and monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 (P = .02) were significantly increased in the test group compared with the control group.
Conclusions:
Urinary IL-8, IP-10, and MCP-1 are proinflammatory cytokines that are increased in the neonate during an infectious inflammatory process. These may be useful predictors as an adjunct to the current protocols to recognize neonatal sepsis.
