Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in non-asthmatic children with prolonged cough

ABSTRACT

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common cause of community-acquired respiratory tract infections. It causes interstitial pneumonia and more often a long-standing tracheobronchitis in children and adults. Clinical diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection is frequently hindered by the lack of specific symptoms and signs as well as by difficulties in the isolation of the pathogen from clinical specimens. The aim of this work was to study the prevalence of specific antibodies to Mycoplasma pneumoniae in children with acute respiratory infections. The study was conducted on 48 children aged from 5 to 15 years complaining of cough for more than one week, children with frank lobar pneumonia and those with past or family history of bronchial asthma were excluded. All patients were subjected to full clinical examination, plain X-ray chest, complete blood picture, C-reactive protein detection and assessment of serum Mycoplasma pneumoniae IgM and IgG antibodies by ELISA. Results revealed that positive IgM antibodies were detected in 75% of cases. Among the studied patients, there was no significant difference in the prevalence of clinical signs and symptoms between Mycoplasma positive and negative cases. Also, the studied laboratory parameters; C-reactive protein, complete blood picture and chest X-ray findings did not help in identification of Mycoplasma infected patients. Therefore, we recommend that one should suspect Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in children, especially those over the age of 5 years, with no or past history of asthma who present with cough for more than one week and in whom clinical findings are not typical for pneumonia, and that empiric therapy with a macrolide antibiotic, rather than lactam agents should be considered in such group of patients