Background: Adenovirus infections are exceedingly common in childhood. Although this infection is well described in hospitalized children, there is no paper that focused on patients who were admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).
Objective: To investigate the characteristics of adenoviral infection in children admitted to the PICU.
Patients and Methods: Clinical data on children hospitalized with Adenovirus infection between 2005 and 2014 were retrospectively collected. Data were compared between children hospitalized in the PICU and those who were not, in a 1:2 ratio.
Results: During the study period 29 children with adenovirus infection were admitted to the PICU, representing 6.3% of all hospitalized children with Adenovirus during the study period. Among them 16 (55.2%) required mechanical ventilation and there was one case of mortality (3.5%). Compared to children in the control group, children in the PICU group had longer hospitalizations (33.6±48.1 vs 4.6±2.5 days, p<0.001) and had a higher incidence of respiratory symptoms (89.7% vs 58.6%, p=0.007).
Interestingly, there were 14 healthy children that needed to be admitted to the PICU, among them children who presented with severe respiratory disease, myocarditis, stridor and encephalopathy. Fifteen children were treated with Cidofovir, including ten who were previously healthy.
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that adenovirus may present as a serious, life threatening disease even in previously healthy children without risk factors. Treatment with Cidofovir may be given safely in this population.
