Preterm birth and detection of common respiratory pathogens among pediatric pneumonia

Xin-Rui Wang; Juan Du; Shan-Shan Zhang; Wan-Xue Zhang; Xiao-Ai Zhang; Qing-Bin Lu; Luo Ren; Wei Liu; En-Mei Liu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107488

Preterm birth and detection of common respiratory pathogens among pediatric pneumonia

iScience. 2023 Jul 27;26(9):107488. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107488. eCollection 2023 Sep 15.

Authors

Xin-Rui Wang^{1

2}, Juan Du^{1

2}, Shan-Shan Zhang^{1

2}, Wan-Xue Zhang^{1

2}, Xiao-Ai Zhang³, Qing-Bin Lu^{1

2

4}, Luo Ren⁵, Wei Liu^{3

6}, En-Mei Liu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Laboratorial Science and Technology & Vaccine Research Center, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, P.R. China.
² Global Center for Infectious Disease and Policy Research & Global Health and Infectious Diseases Group, Peking University, Beijing 100191, P.R. China.
³ Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity, Beijing, P.R. China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Epidemiology of Major Diseases (Peking University), Ministry of Education, Beijing 100191, P.R. China.
⁵ Department of Respiratory Medicine, Children's Hospital, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400014, P.R. China.
⁶ School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, P.R. China.

Abstract

Pneumonia complicated by preterm birth is related to adverse clinical sequelae from the neonatal period to childhood. Children with pneumonia during 2009-2021 were enrolled at the Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University. Altogether 20 respiratory pathogens were detected and compared. Among 8,206 children, 779 were in the preterm group with 246 of early-preterm and 533 of late preterm. The positive rates for all viral pathogens were comparable between the preterm group and the full-term group. For bacterial pathogens, higher positive rates for Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae were observed in the preterm group. Severe pneumonia developed in 16.52% of all, which was higher in the preterm group than in the full-term group. A significantly higher rate of severe pneumonia was observed in the early-preterm group compared to the late-preterm group. Preterm birth has an impact on the detection of bacterial pathogens in children and is a risk factor for severe pneumonia.

Keywords: Microbiology; Pediatrics; Pregnancy.