2.4 Statistical analysis
Data were expressed as medians with interquartile ranges for continuous
variables and as numbers with percentages for categorical variables.
Among two groups, continuous and categorical variables were compared by
using the Mann–Whitney U test and χ2 test or Fisher’s
exact test respectively. P≤ 0.05 was considered statistically
significant. Statistical analysis was carried out by using IBM SPSS
Statistics for Windows, verision 25.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, New York)
software.
Results
manifestations and radiological features of the children LP
patients
In our study, a total of 17 patients were included, with median age of 2
years[Interquartile Range, IQR(1.48~4.23)], in two
of which had severe malnutrition and in one of which had obesity, the
remaining 14 patients had no risk factors. The most frequent symptoms
were cough (n= 14), fever (n=14) and tachypnea (n=7). Clinical visit
data was availiable for the 17 children who finally were asymptomatic
and presented normal radiological imagings. One patient taking sewing
machine oil for 2 days had a severe pneumothorax, but a good clinical
evolution. Corticosteroid and preventive antibiotics use were
administered in 12 of the 17 children. Bronchoscopic lavage using normal
saline was performed in all children. Characteristics of the patients
are listed in the table 1.
Laboratory findings, such as arterial blood gas analysis(ABGA),
peripheral blood investigations, bronchoscopic lavage fluid (BALF)
analysis and CT features are
presented in figure1 and table 2. Mild hypoxemia and hypocapnia were
noted. BALF analysis was found in 8 of 17 patients who underwent
bronchoscopy, and the increased neutrophilic granulocyte percentage was
observed in BALF analysis and peripheral blood investigations.
In most cases, the lesions were multilobular; both lungs were equally
involved; the right lung was more extensively involved than the left
lung. On CT scan, the most common radiological features in the patients
with ELP were bilateral areas of air-space consolidation(15, 93.75%)
and poorly defined centrilobular nodules(13, 81.25%). The children had
no pleural effusion, lymph-node enlargement or any other chest
abnormality. The presence of ground-glass attenuation was observed in 11
cases, and ‘crazy-paving’ pattern(septal thickening) in 6 cases.