Lower respiratory tract infections are commonly caused by viruses and cause significant morbidity and mortality among children. Early identification of the pathological agent causing these infections is essential to avoid unnecessary antibiotic use and improve patient management. Multiplex PCR techniques were recently developed to detect multiple viral pathogens using a single PCR reaction. In this study, we identify viral pathogens in children with respiratory infections. We collected 194 nasopharyngeal aspirates from infants (2–24 months old) with lower respiratory tract infections treated at the Vietnam National Children’s Hospital between November 2014 and June 2015 and assessed the presence of 16 virus types and subtypes by multiplex PCR using the xTAG Respiratory Viral Panel (RVP) assay. Overall, 73.7% of the samples were positive for at least one virus, and 24.2% corresponded to infections with multiple viruses. The most common viruses were respiratory syncytial virus and enterovirus/rhinovirus. These viruses were more frequent among younger patients (2–5 months old) and caused symptoms similar to those of bronchiolitis and pneumonia. The most common clinical manifestation caused by respiratory tract infection was bronchiolitis. Elevated neutrophils levels were associated with adenovirus infection. Our results showed that the xTAG Respiratory Viral Panel (RVP) can effectively detect multiple viruses causing respiratory infections in children and that the nasopharyngeal aspirates are a good sample choice to detect respiratory viruses in children. Applying this approach in the clinical setting would improve patient management and allow early diagnosis, thus avoiding the unnecessary use of antibiotics.

中文翻译：

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越南国家儿童医院治疗下呼吸道感染的临床和病原学特征


下呼吸道感染通常由病毒引起，导致儿童显着发病和死亡。及早识别引起这些感染的病理因子对于避免不必要的抗生素使用和改善患者管理至关重要。最近开发出多重 PCR 技术，可使用单一 PCR 反应检测多种病毒病原体。在这项研究中，我们鉴定了患有呼吸道感染的儿童的病毒病原体。我们收集了 2014 年 11 月至 2015 年 6 月期间在越南国家儿童医院治疗的患有下呼吸​​道感染的婴儿（2-24 个月大）的 194 例鼻咽抽吸物，并使用 xTAG 呼吸道病毒通过多重 PCR 评估了 16 种病毒类型和亚型的存在面板 (RVP) 测定。总体而言，73.7%的样本对至少一种病毒呈阳性，24.2%对应于多种病毒感染。最常见的病毒是呼吸道合胞病毒和肠道病毒/鼻病毒。这些病毒在年轻患者（2-5 个月大）中更为常见，并引起与细支气管炎和肺炎类似的症状。呼吸道感染引起的最常见的临床表现是细支气管炎。中性粒细胞水平升高与腺病毒感染有关。我们的结果表明，xTAG 呼吸道病毒检测试剂盒 (RVP) 可以有效检测引起儿童呼吸道感染的多种病毒，并且鼻咽抽吸物是检测儿童呼吸道病毒的良好样本选择。在临床环境中应用这种方法将改善患者管理并实现早期诊断，从而避免不必要的抗生素使用。