Neonatal sepsis in the NICU

Although infection rates have modestly decreased in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the last years, sepsis remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in newborns worldwide. To date, there is no universally accepted definition for neonatal sepsis, as the consensus definition for pediatric patients is not suited for use in the NICU, and it lacks to address the evaluation of organ dysfunction in the premature population. For this reason and the extreme variability of clinical presentation of sepsis in newborns, diagnosis is not always straightforward. This paper aims to provide an updated overview of the current literature on etiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of neonatal sepsis.