Background: Prenatal asphyxia is one of the important causes of morbidity and
mortality in neonates. Several studies tried to find a marker for early
diagnosis of prenatal asphyxia. This study aimed to examine the diagnostic value of
urinary uric acid to creatinine (UA/Cr) ratio in perinatal asphyxia.
Methods: In this study, 48 term infants with prenatal asphyxia and 48 healthy
neonates were compared in terms of uric acid to creatinine ratio in urine
samples from the first 24 hours of birth. Demographic data including sex, birth
weight, gestational age, and mode of delivery were also recorded.
Results: The mean uric acid to creatinine ratio was significantly higher in
infants with asphyxia than the control group (respectively, 2.1 ± 1.00 vs. 0.8
± 0.20 p= 0.0001). The urine UA / Cr
ratio was also positively and significantly associated with the severity of
asphyxia (p= 0.0001). Urine UA / Cr values were not related to neonatal sex, gestational age, and
birth weight. However, the ratio was higher in emergency c-section (2± 0.90) compared with elective caesarean section (1.3
± 0.90) and vaginal (1.26 ± 0.90). Cut-off point equal to 1.20 appears to be
the most appropriate cutoff for urine UA / Cr ratio with 87% sensitivity, 91%
specificity, and accuracy of the 5.89%, in the diagnosis of perinatal asphyxia
in term infants.
Conclusions: Urine UA / Cr ratio can be introduced as a marker for early, easy and
cost effective detection of perinatal asphyxia.
Rights and permissions | |
![]() |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |