Clinical and laboratory findings in children with adenovirus infections.

The hospital records of 49 children with adenovirus infection were reviewed. Diagnosis was made by virus isolation from the airways in 73%, the stools in 44%, the conjunctiva in 2% and by serology in 14% of the patients. Most children were less than 3 years of age. The peak incidence of virus isolation occurred during the month of April. Pharyngotonsillitis was the most frequent main diagnosis (49%), followed by pneumonia (14%), gastroenteritis (10%) and bronchitis (8%). Fever was the most frequent main symptom (43%), and 96% of the patients had fever at some time during the illness. The average fever temperature was 39.6 degrees C with a mean duration of 5.9 days. An obvious bacterial superinfection could be demonstrated in three patients: two had otitis media and one had pneumonia with pleural effusion. All three had more than 3 band forms per 100 peripheral white blood cells, whereas only 1 out of 46 children without demonstrable superinfection had an elevated band count. Other laboratory tests were not useful in detecting bacterial superinfection. That 71% of all children received antibiotics at some time during their illness, reflects the difficulty of excluding bacterial disease.