**9. Conclusion**

CRP is one of the most widely available, most studied, and most used laboratory tests for neonatal bacterial infection and despite the continuing emergence of new infection markers it still plays a central role in the diagnosis of early onset sepsis of the neonate. CRP has the advantage of being well characterized in numerous studies and the extensive knowledge on its properties and limitations makes it safer compared to other, newer markers. Still, further research is needed on the topics of the influence of gestational age on CRP kinetics in infection, non-infectious confounders, and the evaluation of dynamic and gestational age dependent reference values.
