Investigation of factors by real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis in hospitalized patients with acute lower respiratory tract infections

INTRODUCTION: Acute bronchiolitis and/or pneumonia are generally referred to as lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI). It was aimed to investigate the agents in LRTI, which is one of the most important causes of childhood deaths, by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method from the nasopharyngeal aspirate.
METHODS: In our study, chest radiographs, clinical, demographic, laboratory characteristics, and disease agents obtained by real-time PCR were examined in patients aged 1 month to 18 years who were hospitalized with a prediagnosis of LRTI in the pediatric service during the year 2019.
RESULTS: The patients’ mean age was 25.89±36.72 months, and 57.05% (n=279) of the study group were male. Patients are grouped monthly; of the study group, 69.3% were between the ages of one and 24 months, and 16.0% were between the ages of 24 and 60 months. In the study group, 38% (n=186) of 489 patients had a fever. In 93.9% of cases, a cough was present. Of the 489 patients in the study group, 175 (35.7%) had no detectable causative agent, while 314 (64.3%) had one or more. After analyzing individual factors, 28.34% of the study group had Rhinovirus as the causative agent.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The most frequent cause of LRTI was determined to be Rhinovirus in our investigation, in contrast to the general literature in our nation. Other data appear to be generally compatible with national and international literature.