Significance of Acute Phase Reactants as Prognostic Biomarkers for Pneumonia in Children

Enas Abdel Hamid¹, Walaa Ali¹ , Hanaa Ahmed², Amre Megawer³  and Wafaa Osman⁴

¹Department of Child health, Child Health, National Research Centre, Giza, Egypt

²Department of Hormones,  Professor of biochemistry, National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

³Department of  pediatrics , Pediatric,  Institute of ophthalmology, Giza, Egypt.

⁴Department of Pediatrics, Pediatric, Faculyt of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Abassia, Cairo, Egypt.

Corresponding Author E-mail: wafaaosman83@gmail.com

Abstract: Community acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a major contributing  cause for the increased rate of childhood mortalities and morbidities in the developing countries. Thus, we aimed in this study to appraise the significance of acute phase reactant proteins in correlation with the modified pneumonia prognostic score to assess the disease severity and outcome in children.This study included 40 children with pneumonia ( age between 6 months 2 years ) and other 40 healthy controls ( age and sex matched). They were enrolled in the study and a detailedhistory’s obtained, full clinical examination and assessment of AGP, CRP and ferritin in serum in addition to CBC.AGP, CRP and ferritin showed significant higher levels in children with pneumonia than healthy controls. Also, their values were significantly higher in nonsuvivors than survivors.The present investigation provides a distinct evidence for the prominence of acute phase reactants (ferritin, CRP and AGP) in comparison with the clinical scores in predicting early high risk prognosis of pneumonia in children.

Keywords: Acute phase  reactant proteins; Clinical score; Children; Pneumonia; Prognosis

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