La polmonite da Streptococcus pneumoniae in età pediatrica: aspetti clinici e microbiologici.

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is still a pediatric common illness that afflicts children troughout the world. Streptococcus pneumoniae is one of the most common and virulent pathogens so an early diagnosis is very important to do a right treatment. Our study has evaluated the role of symptoms, chest radiograph and microbiological test to determine a S.pneumoniae pneumonia.We conducted a prospective study from January to September 2005 including 44 children (1month-15 years old) admitted to the Padova Pediatric ED suffering from pneumonia confirmed with a chest radiograph. From the obtained results the nasopharyngeal aspirate culture and the pneumococcal urine antigen are complementary and we can make a right diagnosis if we associate this test with symptoms and laboratory test.