?is iron deficiency anemia a risk factor for pneumonia in early childhood

Abstract

        Lower respiratory tract infections and in particular pneumonia are

        considered  one of the most important causes of childhood morbidity

        and mortality at the   age of less than five years, and as an important

                 health problem, due to the presence of several predisposing risk

                 factors, including anemia specifically Iron deficiency anemia, it was

                 necessary to investigate most of accused factors and to know the

                 problem resulting from them for diagnosis and treat as early as

                 possible.  

         Objectives:

        The main objective: Studying the relationship of iron deficiency anemia

        with pneumonia among a sample of children admitted to the Pediatric

     Department at Tishreen University Hospital.         

        Secondary objective: Study of other risk factors for pneumonia in children

        Methods:

         Successive children admitted to the Pediatric Department at

         Tishreen University Hospital with a history of clinically,

         radiologically and laboratory diagnosed pneumonia between the

         years (2020-2021) with ages ranging from (1 to 6 years) as a group

         of cases and patients of the same age and sex without pneumonia as a

         group of controls.

         Data were analyzed according to: sex, age, weight, height, presence or

         absence of pneumonia, detection of low birth weight, and peripheral blood

        smear findings.   

         In addition to studying other risk factors, and their relationship with their

      recurrence of pneumonia. 

         Nutritional status was assessed based on height and weight measurement

         and projected on the z-score index.

        The diagnosis for both study groups was based on clinical examination,

        medical history, radiological investigations and available laboratory analyzes.

      Results:

        The research sample included 50 children (33 males,

      17 females) with a history of lung diagnosed clinically, 

        radiologically and laboratory during the period (2020-2021),

        and the investigators included the inclusion criteria in the research.

        A sample of 50 children (27 male, 23 female) who did not

        have pneumonia was adopted as a control group.

        Where the percentage of males (60%) and females (40%)

        with Sex Ratio (M:F) = 1.5:1. The ages ranged between

        1 to 6 years, and the average age was 2.99 ± 1.8 years.

60% of the research sample had anemia , of which (36%)       

        was iron deficiency anemia, and deficiency anemia

       constituted a higher percentage in the case group (44%)

       compared to the control group (28%).

    Pneumonia was more common in males and in the age    

       group (1 to 3 years).Among the city's population, and with

       the number of family members more than 5, pneumonia.

       cases represented (52%) compared to (20%) in the control

        group, there were no significant differences with respect to smoking

     between the two study groups.     

       Regarding the presence of hypochromic micro-anaemia,

       it was higher in the case group (36%) compared to (10%) in

       the control group. The hemoglobin level (HB <11) in the

       case group was (56%) and in the control group (42%),

    where patients with cases who had anemia were at twice  

       the risk of developing pneumonia compared to those who

       did not have anemia.