Background: Pneumonia is an acute lung inflammation caused by both infectious and non-infectious sources. Recurrent pneumonia is caused by weakened local or systemic host defenses, or by underlying lung diseases. Early diagnosis and treatment of the underlying cause should minimize pneumonia-related hospitalizations, morbidity, and death. Children hospitalized to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) with severe pneumonia have significant morbidity and death rate.
Aim of The Work: To identify the underlying causes and clinical profile of children with sRP admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
Patients and Methods: This research included 100 children with sRP hospitalized to PICU at Al-Hussein &Bab El-Shaarya University hospitals during the period from Feb. 2020 to Feb 2022. The research protocol was approved by the committee for research ethics at Al-Azhar faculty of medicine .All patients completed informed consent forms before the study began. We recruited all patients with severe recurrent pneumonia.
Results: The average age of sRP diagnosis was 14.8 months, the age of the first pneumonia episode was 12.1. Males were twice of females to be diagnosed with sRP. Wheezing was the most prevalent symptom with 99% of cases then wheezing (63%) and fever (60%). Respiratory abnormalities were the most prevalent (28%) as underlying causes of sRP patients, then Immune disorders (22%) and congenital heart diseases (16%). Pulmonary hemorrhagic syndrome was the least prevalent cause as it was observed in only 2 cases.
Conclusion: Severe recurrent pneumonia is common in pediatric critical care units. About ninety percent of individuals with recurrent severe pneumonia were also suffering from some other disease, including respiratory, immunological, congenital heart, and aspiration syndrome.