Objective: To investigate clinical characteristics and risk factors for atypical community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children.
Methods: Multiplex polymerase chain reaction and specific IgM determination were used to detect atypical bacteria in 661 hospitalized children aged 1-15 years with CAP. Clinical and epidemiological patterns were compared between typical and atypical CAP.
Results: Children in atypical CAP group manifested significantly lower rates of wheezing, bronchial rales, and interstitial pneumonia and showed higher rates of asthma history, headache, chest pain, and lobar pneumonia . Age group, season of disease onset, asthma history, duration of symptom onset to hospital admission, and radiological findings were the significant risk factors for atypical CAP on multivariate logistic regression analysis.
Conclusions: The clinical characteristics and risk factors can be used to identify a child at high risk of atypical CAP.