Patients’ characteristics
23 acutely ill children with pro-BNP> 300 pg/mL and
suspected pulmonary congestion were enrolled. Of these: -8 diagnosed
with systemic inflammatory disease/sepsis (with a median age of 30.5
months); -7 diagnosed with heart disease (with a median age of 147
months); -8 diagnosed with systemic inflammatory disease/sepsis and
heart disease (with median age of 127.5 months).
The descriptive analysis of the main epidemiological and clinical
characteristics of the study population (acutely ill children ),
as well as the main diagnostic and laboratory investigations performed
on these patients, evaluated according to the three diagnostic
sub-category, are described in detail in Table 1.
In addition, the main epidemiological and clinical characteristics of
the study population (acutely ill children ), as well as the main
diagnostic and laboratory investigations performed on these patients,
were assessed according to pro-BNP level group (lower or higher than the
value of 1000 pg / ml) and are detailed in Table 2. The results of the
laboratory and other diagnostic investigations were not able to
discriminate significantly between the two groups. The only significant
difference is that patients who are in the pro-BNP> 1000
group have a significantly higher frequency of prior cardiac disease (p
= 0.007), have significantly higher troponin (p = 0.002), and among the
characteristics of echocardiograms have more frequently pathological
findings with signs of overload and / or decompensation (92.86% versus
0; p = 0.002). Furthermore, 77.78% of patients belonging to the pro-BNP
<1000 group have a diagnosis of systemic inflammatory
disease/sepsis (p = 0.003).
Finally, we compared the LUS results of the study population
(acutely ill children ) with those of a sample of patients
suffering from bronchiolitis and a sample of healthy patients. In
particular, we analyzed the epidemiological and clinical data - as well
as the LUS findings - of 53 patients with bronchiolitis (with a
median age of 2 months) and of 33 healthy patients (with a median
age of 7 months). The main epidemiological and clinical characteristics
of the three populations are detailed in Table 3.