Source: Annual Congress 2002 - Miscellaneous respiratory infections in children
Disease area: Paediatric lung diseases, Respiratory infections

Abstract

In our country, atypical pneumonias due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) are frequent. The aim of this study is to describe some clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of infections due to this agent.
Using a standardized form we found 159 hospitalized (67/159) or ambulatory (92/159) treated children at the Exequiel Gonzalez C. Children's Hospital, with infections due to MP between 1997 and 2001.
Ethiologic diagnosis was done by ELISA en 129 cases and by ELISA or IF + PCR in 30 children. The mean age was 7.2 years (range 4 months-16 years). Only 10/159 (6.3%) were less than two years old and 76/159 (47.8%) were male. The 51.8% of cases appear during late winter and spring. In 68.6% (109/159) the clinical presentation was pneumonia, in 21 cases associated with wheezing; in 32/159 (20.1%) the diagnosis was asthmatic crisis and in 7 (4.4%) [dsquote]pertussis-like[dsquote] syndrom. In 13 children (8.2%) there were extrapulmonary manifestations (6 arthritis, 3 meningoencephalitis, 3 polimorphic erythema and 1 pericarditis), in 12 of them, associated to pneumonia or asthmatic crisis and in 1 case (arthritis) as the only clinical finding. In 61 from 109 pneumonias (56%) there were bilateral radiologic findings, unilateral in 46 and in 2 cases data were not registered. In 46 cases there was alveolar filling, interstitial pattern in 22 and both in 29. Thirteen children with pneumonia had pleural effussion and 21 atelectasis. 35 from 67 hospitalized children required oxygen therapy.
In our patients, clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of infections due to MP are similar to described in literature. The main differences are frequency of bilateral findings in cases of pneumonia and the high incidence of arthritis as extrapulmonary manifestation.

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Citations should be made in the following way:
R. Kogan, P. Astudillo, C. Cortes, J. Maluenda (Santiago, Chile). Clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of mycoplasma pneumoniae infections in Santiago, Chile. Eur Respir J 2002; 20: Suppl. 38, 2100

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