Improved Diagnostics Help to Identify Clinical Features and Biomarkers That Predict Mycoplasma pneumoniae Community-acquired Pneumonia in Children

Meyer Sauteur, Patrick M; Krautter, Selina; Ambroggio, Lilliam; Seiler, Michelle; Paioni, Paolo; Relly, Christa; Capaul, Riccarda; Kellenberger, Christian; Haas, Thorsten; Gysin, Claudine; Bachmann, Lucas M; van Rossum, Annemarie M C; Berger, Christoph

In conclusion, improved diagnostics helped to identify clinical features and biomarkers that may predict Mp CAP in children, such as age >5 years, no underlying disease, family with RTI, prior antibiotic treatment, prodromal respiratory symptoms and fever >6 days, as well as extrapulmonary (skin) manifestations. Biomarkers showed some differences between Mp-positive and Mp-negative patients in that Mp positivity was associated with low levels of CRP, WBC count, ANC, and PCT, particularly a PCT cutoff of <0.25 μg/L. However, the study size is small and even the best combinations of clinical features and biomarkers may not be reliable enough to be used as a diagnostic itself. Our data support that a combination of clinical features and biomarkers may help physicians in identifying patients at high risk for Mp CAP, which warrants further investigations in a larger cohort of children with Mp infection.