Valuable hematological indicators for the diagnosis and severity assessment of Chinese children with community-acquired pneumonia: Prealbumin

Ning, Jingjing; Shao, Xiaonan; Ma, Yibo; Lv, Darong

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Soochow University. All patients and their family members signed the informed consent form. Patients' medical records were anonymous. From May 2014 to May 2016, 174 cases of hospitalized children with CAP aged from 3 months to 12.4 years (average age was 4.1 years) were retrospectively analyzed. CAP was defined as the presence of signs and symptoms of pneumonia (fever and respiratory symptoms) and pulmonary condensation on chest radiography in a previously healthy child caused by an infection that was acquired outside the hospital. [6] Children who had received antibiotic treatments for more than 48 hours before admission or had been suffering from an underlying chronic respiratory disease were excluded from the study. A total of 33 healthy children were selected as the control group, aged from 8 months to 9.8 years (average age was 4.7 years). A total of 174 cases of CAP patients were further divided into 4 groups according to the admission time. A total of 47 cases were in spring (March-May), 64 cases were in summer (June-August), 32 cases were in autumn (September-November), and 31 cases were in winter (December-February). According to the scope of X-ray pulmonary infiltration, presence of hypoxemia, and presence of pulmonary or extrapulmonary complications, [7] CAP group was further divided into mild group (133 cases) and severe group (22 cases), 19 cases without performing chest X-ray were not included in the study. The vital signs including body temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate (RR) were recorded.