Allergy Asthma Respir Dis.  2015 Sep;3(5):346-351. 10.4168/aard.2015.3.5.346.

Clinical presentations of Chlamydia pneumoniae in children hospitalized for acute respiratory infections: a comparison to Mycoplasma pneumonia

• Sung JJ
• Kim EJ
• Sun YH
• Jeon IS
• Tchah H
• Ryoo E
• Son DW
• Cho HK
• Cho HJ
• Kim NY

• KMID: 2218645
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4168/aard.2015.3.5.346

Abstract

PURPOSE
Chlamydia pneumoniae is a common intracellular bacterial pathogen and plays an important role in acute respiratory infections. The purpose of this study was to investigate clinical presentations of C. pneumoniae in children with acute respiratory infections.
METHODS
We examined the medical records of pediatric patients (age<18 years) admitted with acute respiratory infections of C. pneumoniae to Gachon University Gil Medical Center between March 1, 2011 and August 31, 2014. We compared the clinical features of C. pneumoniae infection with that of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection.
RESULTS
We confirmed acute respiratory infections of C. pneumoniae in 110 patients out of 2,156 patients (5.1%) admitted with acute respiratory infections. The mean age was 37.2+/-30.1 months. More than half of them (54.5%) had coinfection. C. pneumoniae infection had mild and subacute courses. The mean duration of symptoms prior to admission was 8.5+/-13.8 days. There were remarkable seasonal variations and prevalence was higher in December and April (P=0.03 and P=0.02, respectively). Although rhinorrhea and pharyngeal injection were more common in C. pneumoniae infection (P<0.05), clinical signs and symptoms were similar between C. pneumoniae and M. pneumoniae. Extrapulmonary manifestations such as skin lesion, Gastrointestinal symptoms, hepatitis, and neurologic symptoms were common (41.0%) in C. pneumoniae infection and, had similar incidence in M. pneumoniae infection.
CONCLUSION
C. pneumoniae is an important infectious agent of acute respiratory infections in children. Clinical pictures of C. pneumoniae are similar to M. pneumoniae, even in extrapulmonary manifestations. C. pneumoniae should be taken into consideration in differential diagnosis of acute respiratory infection in children.

Keyword

Chlamydia pneumoniae; Respiratory infections; Mycoplasma pneumoniae

MeSH Terms

Child*
Chlamydia*
Chlamydophila pneumoniae*
Coinfection
Diagnosis, Differential
Hepatitis
Humans
Incidence
Medical Records
Mycoplasma pneumoniae
Mycoplasma*
Neurologic Manifestations
Pneumonia
Pneumonia, Mycoplasma*
Prevalence
Respiratory Tract Infections*
Seasons
Skin

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Frequencies of infections caused by Chlamydia pneumoniae among children hospitalized in individual months of the year.

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