Underlying causes of persistent pneumonia in children at the Intensive Care Unit,Vietnam National Children’s Hospital

Abstract

The study describes underlying causes of children with severe persistent pneumonia (sPP) admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Vietnam National Children’s Hospital. In the prospective and descriptive study, all patients classified as sPP (pneumonia persisting for 30 days or more, despite receiving antibiotics for a minimum period of 10 days), admitted to ICU, Vietnam National Children’s Hospital from November 2019 to August 2020 were recruited. Patients were divided into groups based on having a recurrent lesion in the same lobe or lesion in multiple lobes before undergoing several investigational tests to identify the underlying causes. 82 patients with sPP accounted for 21.9% of children admitted to ICU due to pneumonia and 10.6% of total patients at ICU. Underlying causes were diagnosed in 82.9% of sPP children, with the most common causes are abnormalities in respiratory (19.5%), immune disorders (18.3%), congenital heart diseases (17.1%). Underlying causes couldn’t be identified in 17.1% of the patients, among whom necrotizing pneumonia or lung abscess account for 50%, ARDS 21.4%, and tuberculosis 14.3%. Local and recurrent x-ray lesions in one lung lobe accounted for 22%.