A prospective multicenter study was designed to assess the frequency, etiology, and mortality of nosocomial neonatal sepsis diagnosed between 1996 and 1997 in the neonatology services of 27 acute-care hospitals in Spain ("Grupo de Hospitales Castrillo"). Nosocomial sepsis is defined in the literature using chronological criteria (> 3-7 days of life at the onset of symptoms); accordingly, there is the possibility of including late-onset maternally acquired sepsis or of excluding early-onset nosocomial sepsis (< 3-7 days of life). For these reasons, in this study, cases of nosocomial sepsis that developed at < or = 3-7 days after birth (early onset) were also recorded and maternally acquired sepsis diagnosed beyond 3-7 days of life were excluded. Using these criteria in a total of 30,993 admissions to the neonatal units of the participating hospitals, the nosocomial sepsis rate was 2.1

作者：J B, López Sastre；D, Coto Cotallo；B, Fernández Colomer

来源：Journal of perinatal medicine 2002 年 30卷 2期