INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF WHITE BLOOD CELL COUNT IN ACUTE RESPIRATORY INFECTIONS IN CHILDREN AGED 1-3 YEARS OLD

Abstract

Nowadays acute respiratory infections are considered to be the most topical and multifaceted problem of pediatric practice. An integrated analysis of white blood indicators, obtained by a hematologic analyzer, can be widely applied to diagnose and predict the course of these diseases. Research aim. To determine the correlation status of white blood cell count indicators in children aged 1-3 years old, suffered from acute respiratory infections, with the degree of disease severity, the recurrence indices of acute respiratory infections and the manifestations of connective tissue dysplasia. Object and methods. The examination of 42 hospitalized children aged 1-3 years old, who suffered from acute respiratory infections with the involvement of upper or lower airways, was carried out. The number of acute respiratory infections in the past was taken into account in the examined children. What is more, the following signs were considered for each child: the recurrence indices of acute respiratory infections, maximum body temperature during the acute disease, white blood indicators, obtained by a hematologic analyzer, erythrocyte sedimentation rate. Besides, several leukocyte indices were calculated as well as integrated indicators of inflammation and dolichostenomelia using the minimax Z-normalization method. The presence of significant relationships between the studied indicators was determined by means of rank correlation analysis. Research results. Given that the distribution of primary values of the studied indicators in all variation series turned out to be non-normal, only non-parametric statistic methods were used. Among all the examined children the lowest values of quartile variation were found for such indicators as maximum body temperature, body-weight index, Verveсk index, integrated indicator of dolichostenomelia and the total number of white blood cells. At the same time, this indicator was the highest for the leukocyte indices. The dependence between the children’s age and the diagnosed clinical forms of acute respiratory infection was not shown. The significant difference between the boys and girls was revealed only by the number of blood lymphocytes and the total leukocyte intoxication index. It was established the presence moderate inverse relationship between the age of the examined children and infectious index that indicates the clear tendency to decrease in the number of acute respiratory infection with age. Along with this, the relevant positive relationship between infectious index and resistance index (τb = 0.526; p <0,001) seems quite logical. Conclusions. The integrated index of inflammation in the examined children with acute respiratory infections turns out to be in the most prominent and direct dependence with the absolute number of blood granulocytes. The recurrence indices of acute respiratory infections in these children are directly correlated with the absolute number of blood lymphocytes. There is the direct dependence between the manifestation degree of studied phenotypic signs of connective tissue dysplasia and the total leukocyte intoxication index. There are plans to continue studying of significant factors and causal sequences that influence the incidence of acute respiratory infections in children of pre-school age.

Keywords

• children
• acute respiratory infections
• connective tissue dysplasia
• white blood.