Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal

Abstract

ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND:
It is an inflammatory disease of lungs with consolidation of one or more lobes caused mostly by Streptocccus pneumoniae bacteria. It is a worldwide disease with high mortality among children less than 5 years old.
OBJECTIVE:
To determine the proper empirical antibiotic treatment for lobar pneumonia in hospitalized children and the correlation between the blood culture result and response to treatment.
METHODS:
A Cross sectional study was performed between January 2013 through December 2013 to 69 patient admitted to Central Teaching Hospital Of Pediatrics in Baghdad, aged more than two months to ten years, all of them met the WHO case definition of pneumonia, data was collected from the mothers for (age, sex, previous health and vaccination status). Blood sample was collected for blood culture and sensitivity for all patients.
RESULTS:
The study showed that of 69 patients hospitalized with lobar pneumonia 69.5% were males, and 30.5% were females, 82.6% of patients were in an age group less than one year. The study found that 69.6% of patients were not vaccinated and they were mostly less than 1 year. The response to treatment range from 88.8%-94% and Blood culture was negative in 95.6% of samples. Mortality rate was 4.3%
CONCLUSION:
Treatment with Ceftriaxone (3rd generation Cephalosporine) alone is effective as an empirical treatment for lobar pneumonia in hospitalized patients, so no need for combination therapy of Ceftriaxone and Vancomycin and the Blood culture was negative for Streptococcus pneumoniae in all cases so the results of Blood Culture had no correlation with response to treatment.