Assessment of difference in the clinical and microbial spectrum of community-acquired pneumonia among Egyptian children

Abstract

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a significant cause of respiratory morbidity and mortality in children, especially in developing countries. Chest radiography and rapid viral testing may be helpful when the diagnosis is unclear.
Objective: This study aimed to find pattern community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) pathogen after introduction of Haemophilus influenzae type B (HIB) vaccine in Egypt and also to provide an update on the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of CAP in children.
Patients and methods: A cross sectional study that was conducted on 54 patients with pneumonia infection. Participation to this study was offered to all consecutive children aged 2 months to 7 years old presenting with CAP according to the WHO criteria. All cases with CAP were subjected to full history, clinical examination, radiological plan chest X-ray and laboratory and microbiological investigations. Results: The mean age was 1.79 years and mean weight was 9.61 Kg, more than half of them were male (57.4%). About 94.4% of the studied group had respiratory distress (RD) Grade I followed 70.4% had Grade II, 46.3% had grade III. The mean hemoglobin (Hb) level was 11.06 gm/dl, mean hematocrit was 32.44%, while mean neutrophil was 6.61%. Additionally, the mean platelets count was 345.81 × 103/mm3 mean CRP was 43.26 mg/dl, and the median of PCT was 1.13. All 64.8% of the studied group had disease less than 1 week ago. Regarding oxygen support 14.8% needed ventilator. Finally 22.2% were admitted to ICU.
Conclusion: Bacteremia is an unusual complication of CAP in hospitalized children. Our study suggests that approximately 1% of admitted children with CAP are bacteremic.