الفهرس 
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Abstract
Neonatal sepsis is defined as invasive infection which occurs in the first 4 weeks of life and classified as early onset sepsis (EOS) if it occurs within the first week of life and as late onset sepsis (LOS) if occurring after the first week until the end of the neonatal period. EOS is conventionally regarded as maternally-acquired, whereas late onset sepsis is considered environmental in origin–either hospital or community acquired.
Diagnosis of neonatal sepsis is difficult to establish and remains a challenge for neonatal health care providers. Although blood culture is the gold standard for the diagnosis of sepsis, culture reports would be available only after 48-72 hours. Thus, rapid diagnostic tests that differentiate infected from non-infected infants have the potential to make a significant impact on neonatal care.
The present work aimed to evaluate the detection of activation surface markers CD64 on neutrophils and CD69 on lymphocytes and using a broad range PCR assay for detection of bacterial DNA as a diagnostic tool for early identification of a bacterial etiology for neonatal sepsis and comparing both recent investigated methods with conventional blood culture. The study, also aimed to determine the bacterial etiology of neonatal sepsis in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Menoufia University Hospital and the patterns of antimicrobial resistance of the isolated organisms.
This study was conducted at the Microbiology and Immunology department, Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University in collaboration with the Pediatric department, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University during the period from October 2009 to August 2011.