Early detection of bacteremia in infancy

The detection of bacteremia in children less than 24 months of age with fever, is very important, since these patients are at serious risk pyogenic complication. The administration of antibiotics in accordance with the results of cultures is too time consuming. So, several laboratory detection bacteremia must be carried out. In this study, blood cultures, the elevation of white blood cell count, toxic granulation and vacuolization in neutrophils were investigated in 56 children with suspicion of bacteremia. 32 of them were males and 24 females. The positive results were obtained in 41.1% in blood cultures. Positive predictive accuracy were 66.6% and 52.3% for vacuolization and toxic granulation respectively. The presence of these were considered as adjunctive procedures in the early diagnosis of bacteremia.