title: Clinical course of whooping cough in children younger than six months.
abstract: The patient records of 59 children aged 2--26 weeks with culture-verified pertussis were analysed. Twenty-four of them were hospitalized, in most cases for social reasons. Only one child with hypothyroidism and a complicating pneumonia was critically ill. Seventeen of the 35 non-hospitalized patients had a mild disease without developing typical whooping attacks. Thirteen children were treated with erythromycin in the catarrhal stage. There was a tendency towards milder disease in this group but the differences compared to untreated children were not statistically significant.
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002673:Child, Hospitalized; D004917:Erythromycin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012940:Social Problems; D014917:Whooping Cough / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy
chemical_list: D004917:Erythromycin