Abstract
Purpose: To discuss the different characteristics of clinical, laboratory and chest computed tomography (CT) between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in pediatric patients.Methods: We retrospectively retrieved data of inpatients with COVID-19 from January 21st to March 14th, 2020, and CAP from November 1st, 2019 to December 31st, 2019 in Wuhan Children's Hospital. We divided CAP into mycoplasma pneumonia and other viral pneumonia. We analyzed clinical and radiological features from those patients, and compared the differences among COVID-19, mycoplasma pneumonia and other viral pneumonia.Results: Eighty COVID-19 inpatients from January 21st to March 14th, 2020, as well as 95 inpatients with mycoplasma pneumonia and 50 inpatients with other viral pneumonia from November 1st, 2019 to December 31st, 2019 were included in our study. All patients were confirmed with RT-PCR. The clinical symptoms were similar in the three groups. Except fever and cough, diarrhea (6/80, 7.5%), tachypnea (2/80, 2.5%), and fatigue (6/80, 7.5%) were less common in COVID-19 patients. Compared to mycoplasma pneumonia and other viral pneumonia inpatients, COVID-19 patients present remarkably increased alanine aminotransferase (69/80, 86.3%). The typical CT feature of COVID-19 is ground-glass opacity, and it was more common in COVID-19 patients (32/80, 40%).Conclusion: The COVID-19 shared similar onsets with CAP. Even though the ground-glass opacity and elevated level of ALT were frequent in COVID-19, the better way for treatment and management of this disease is quickly and accurately identifying the pathogen.
Highlights
In late December 2019, the pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) was identified in Wuhan Hubei province, China [1]
While plenty of data are available for adult patients with COVID-19, limited reports were available for pediatric patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 [5,6,7]
Among 166 non-COVID-19 inpatients, 50 patients infected by other virus and 95 patients infected by mycoplasma pneumoniae, 18 patients had mycoplasma pneumoniae co-infection with other viruses, three patients infected with multi-viruses
Summary
In late December 2019, the pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) was identified in Wuhan Hubei province, China [1]. The world health organization named the disease caused by SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [2]. Person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurs through close contact with infected person, mainly. The infections showed familiar aggregation, pediatric patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 appeared later than adult [5, 6]. At present, defining the clinical characteristics of the disease in large cohorts of patients is an urgent need. While plenty of data are available for adult patients with COVID-19, limited reports were available for pediatric patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 [5,6,7]
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