الفهرس 
ACUTE BRONCHITISOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
LRTI associated with anemia occurs more commonly in children
than in adults, with anemia affecting approximately 30% of children all
over the world. Iron deficiency anemia in children occurs most
frequently between the age of 6 months and 3 years, the same period of
age when repeated infections occur.
So, the aim of the study was to evaluate the role of iron
deficiency anemia as a risk factor for lower respiratory tract infections.
Our study included seventy-four children with LRTI of both sex.
Included children were aged 3.56±3.66 years, carried out on 74 children
admitted in Pediatric Department, Agouza Police Hospital in a period
from March to December 2013. These children suffering from lower
respiratory tract infection (LRTI), they were subdivided into two
groups according to presence or absence of respiratory distress signs.
They were matched with another 36 apparently healthy children with
the same age and sex served as control group.
Estimation of serum iron, ferritin and TIBC levels was performed
to all patients and control.
In our study, male patients were affected by acute lower
respiratory tract infections more than females, with a pecentage of 56%
to 44%.
Summary
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Most of patient group with no respiratory distress 31 of 34
(91.1%) have fever while fever present only in 26 of 40 (65.0%) of
respiratory distress group.
There were high statistical significant differences between
control and both group of patients according to serum iron and TIBC
levels (P=0.01) with no significance to ferritin level (P=1.0). Serum
iron, ferritin and TIBC were 33.42±15.63 mg/dL, 102.73±131.11
ng/mL, and 493.45±141.63 mg/dL respectively in control group. Serum
iron, ferritin and TIBC were 86.26±61.00 mg/dL, 107.82±85.23 ng/mL,
and 330.90±102.50 mg/dL respectively in patient group with no
respiratory distress. While their levels were 74.0±51.52 mg/dL,
112.54±81.24 ng/mL, and 358.77±120.42 mg/dL respectively in patient
group with respiratory distress.
We concluded that the serum iron, ferritin and TIBC levels have
no relation to respiratory distress among our children with LRTI.
Further studies are recommended to investigate the serum iron
profile including serum iron, ferritin and TIBC in addition to transferrin
receptor in Egyptian children with LRTI, comprising larger number of
candidates and with a prospective and longitudinal design to further
investigate the magnitude of the problem.