الفهرس 
AcknowledgementOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Summary and Conclusion
Despite improved neonatal care over the past decades, infections remain common and sometimes life-threatening in neonates admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Leptin is a 16-kDa polypeptide hormone that is mainly, but not exclusively, produced in adipose tissue and plays an important role in the innate immune defence.
The present study was designed to evaluate the level of serum leptin in cases of neonatal sepsis.
The study was conducted on 60 full term and preterm neonates divided into cases and control groups.
The cases group compromised 40 newborns who were diagnosed as having neonatal sepsis. The mean gestational age of (37.62+1.76 weeks), mean birth weight of (2.85+0.57 Kg) and mean initial serum leptin level of (4.68+0.76 ng/ml).
The control group compromised 20 healthy newborns; 7 males (35%) and 13 females (65%), with mean gestational age of (37.75+0.78 weeks), mean birth weight of (3.45±0.16 kg) and mean serum leptin level of (1.70+0.15 ng/ml).
All patients in the study were subjected to adequate history taking, full clinical examination, CBC, CRP with titre, blood culture and serum leptin assay at the time of diagnosis.
In our study we found that neonates who developed sepsis had their serum leptin levels significantly higher than those of the control group.
Our study revealed that the best cut off value of serum leptin to detect sepsis is 3.25 ng/ml with 90.3% sensitivity and 88.4% specificity.
Also, There were no significant correlations between serum leptin and CBC parameters but there was a significant positive correlation with sepsis score and CRP
A significantly higher serum leptin was found in patients with positive blood culture compared to those with negative cultures.
Conclusion:
from the results of our study we conclude that:
Serum leptin level increases significantly in neonates with neonatal sepsis.
This suggests that leptin is not only an adipostatic hormone but also a stress related hormone.
Also it seems that serum leptin has a role in neonatal sepsis with 90.3% sensitivity and 88.4% specificity.