Predictive value of biochemical, echocardiographic and electrocardiographic markers in non-surviving and surviving asphyxiated full-term newborns.

Severe perinatal asphyxia can cause multiple organ dysfunction and early neonatal mortality. This prospective study was conducted at the Regional University Hospital Neonatology Center in Serbia. The aim of this study was to compare fullterm asphyxiated newborn infants (n=55) with (n=13) and without (n=42) mortality outcome and healthy full-term newborns (n=36) regarding biochemical (cardiac troponin I, creatine kinase (total and MB fraction) and C-reactive protein), echocardiographic (ejection fraction, fractional shortening, mitral regurgitation, significant tricuspid regurgitation, and patent ductus arteriosus) and electrocardiographic (ST segment elevation/depression, T wave inversion and corrected QT interval) markers of myocardial damage in order to assess their predictive value in the clinical outcome. Statistically significant differences in the majority of the tested markers of ischemic myocardial lesion were found between perinatal asphyxia survivors and the control group. However, among the biochemical indicators, only the level of cardiac troponin I was significantly higher in the group of neonates who died compared to the group of asphyxiated neonates who survived (p: 0.000), with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.821 and cutoff value for lethal outcome of 0.135 μg/L (sensitivity 0.85; specificity 0.69). In addition, differences in ejection fraction, fractional shortening and significant tricuspid regurgitation (≥2+) were also found between the two subgroups of asphyxiated newborns. Cardiac troponin I is the most sensitive ischemic myocardial lesion biochemical marker in the prediction of early mortality in perinatal asphyxia patients.