Abstract
Patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) reported higher C-reactive protein (CRP) levels at hospital admission
among patients directly admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU), transferred subsequently to an ICU, or who died in the hospital.
We aimed to determine the value of salivary C - reactive protein in the diagnosis and severity assessment of childhood pneumonia.
This single-centre, case-control observational study was conducted on 80 children admitted at the Pediatric Department of Benha
University Hospitals, Egypt. They were divided into patients group: including 40 children with CAP and subdivided into; severe
pneumonia group (N=18), moderate pneumonia group (N=12) and mild pneumonia group (N=10), and control group included 40
apparently healthy children. All patients underwent detailed history taking general examination of vital signs and appearance,
systemic examination and local examination of chest, laboratory investigations included detection of serum and salivary CRP and
chest x-ray. Serum CRP, and salivary CRP were significantly higher in patients compared to controls (P |
