Evaluation of Iron Profileasan Assistant Diagnostic Tests for Children with Pneumonia

Abstract

Back ground: Iron is required by most organisms as an essential cofactor in many important biological processes. There are controversies regarding the role of nutrients especially iron in respiratory tract infections in childhood. Furthermore, iron deficiency is also associated with impaired immunocompetence and therefore can lead to increased morbidity.
Objective: the aim of this study was to testthe possibility of using the iron profile as a laboratory and diagnostic tests for pneumonia in children.
Methodology: Case-control study was designed to hypothesize that lower iron, ferritin, and TIBC would be associated with a greater risk of pneumonia in children. The study was performed on 150 children with ages between (6 - 72) months, 100 children with pneumonia (57% male) and (43% female,) and 50 control (54% female) and (46% female) in pediatric department of Samarra general hospital from September 2015 till March 2017. The data were analyzed through the SPSS V.20 application, descriptive data analysis was done through frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation in addition to T-test to compare results.

Results: The results showed there was a significant decreased in the levels of Iron, ferritin, and
hemoglobin when compared to control group(66.48±15.9, 3.99±2.06 and 9.4±1.10 vs 75.86±1.87,
5.79±1.66 and 12.23±1.07 respectively), while there was no significant difference of TIBC in study group
when compared to control group(390.93±47.78 vs 393.74±34.64, respectively).
Conclusion: The results of this study were concluded that the pneumonia in children lead to significant
decrease on iron levels, hemoglobin and ferritin while don't effect on TIBC.
Recommendations:The use early and accurate measurements of iron profile that which includes iron,
ferritin and certain compound which contain iron such as hemoglobin as a laboratory diagnostic tests add
to the diagnostic tool for pneumonia in children.