Etiologic, Clinical and Laboratory Evaluation of Acute Respiratory Tract Infections in Childhood

Aim: We aimed to assess the agents causing acute respiratory tract infections in both outpatient and inpatient settings during the pandemic period, considering etiological, clinical, and laboratory findings. Materials and methods: Our study was a prospective single-center and epidemiologic study and included children admitted to the emergency department or outpatient clinic of our hospital with respiratory tract infection findings between 2020 and 2023. Children (up to seven years of age), who presented to the emergency / outpatient clinic with respiratory tract infection findings were included in the study. The children's clinical, demographic, epidemiological, laboratory, and clinical data were retrieved via our hospital's computerized medical registration system. The demographic information of the patients was noted from the hospital records. Data from laboratories on children were compared. Results: A total of 377 children were included in the study. 308 patients received inpatient treatment, while 69 children were followed up as outpatients. Among the cases, respiratory PCR analysis revealed no isolated pathogens in 154 instances, classified as pathogen-negative. When inpatients and outpatients were compared, it was observed that hospitalizations were less frequent, especially in younger patients (p<0.001). There was a weak correlation between pathogen positivity and platelet count. In hospitalized patients, platelet count and lymphocyte count increases were again weakly correlated with hospitalization (r=0.113, p:0.047 and r=0.228, p<0.001, respectively). In the evaluation of all patients, it was found that there was an increase in the number of pathogens grown in respiratory PCR with a decrease in PDW value. (p=0.015). Platelet count was higher in pathogen positive children (p<0.001). PDW value was lower in pathogen positive cases (p=0.003). Conclusion: when diagnosing children with severe respiratory infections, the detectability of viral nucleic acids plays a significant role. For these highly sensitive diagnostic tests to be used optimally, primary viral infections must be distinguished from bacterial superinfection