Abstract
Background: asthma is a risk factor of pneumonia in children. Children with asthma are 40% more likely to have pneumonia, and need hospitalization especially children under five years old. Asthma in pediatric pneumonia has more severe clinical symptoms with increased need of mechanical ventilation and mortality.
Objective: To comprehend asthma risk and the profile of children with pneumonia in Hasan Sadikin General Hospital Bandung-Indonesia.
Method:Retrospective study on pediatric pneumonia with asthma as a comorbidity at Pediatric Ward Department Hasan Sadikin General Hospital from January to December 2012. We include all patient hospitalized with pneumonia and asthma using ICD 10 (J11-J18 and J 45).
Results: Eight hundred and seventy three children with pneumonia were admitted to the hospital. Seven hundred and thirty six patients (84.3%) had comorbidities, and thirty six patients (4.1%) had asthma. Twenty pneumonia patients with asthma (2.3%), 1 patient (0.1%) had asthma and congenital heart disease, and 15 patients (1.5%) had asthma and other comorbid such as cerebral palsy, anemia, malnutrition, diarrhea, and pulmonary tuberculosis. Median age was 42.5 months (11 to 144 months old), with 22 of them (61.1%) were under five years old, and 22 patients were male (61,1%). Six patients didn’t have history of allergy/asthma in their family, and 4 patients had one asthma exacerbation in last 4 weeks. Six patients had previous hospitalization with similar symptoms. One of them received previous controller medication. Laboratories finding revealed white blood cell 5500-24.500/mm3, only 1 bacteria was found from blood culture which was Serratia marcescens, and chest X-ray shows bilateral infiltrate. Eight patients (22.2%) had severe asthma exacerbation. Length of stay was 1 to 8 days. There was no patient admitted to pediatric intensive care unit or perished.
Conclusion: Asthma was still a risk factor for children to developing pneumonia that required hospitalization.
Key words: Asthma, pneumonia, children