title: Immunodiagnoses of community-acquired pneumonia in childhood.
abstract: A diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia requires isolation of the pathogen from blood, lung or tracheal aspirate; however, cultures of blood and pleural fluid samples are usually insensitive. Thus, in the majority of patients the etiology is rarely determined. A total of 840 pleural fluid effusion samples from children with clinical and laboratory diagnoses of acute bacterial pneumonia were evaluated by Dot-ELISA. This method was standardized in order to detect polysaccharide capsular bacterial antigen in pleural fluid samples previously treated with 0.1 M EDTA and dotted on nitrocellulose membrane strips. Pneumococcal omniserum and H. influenzae type b antiserum diluted 1:200 were employed for detection of S. pneumoniae and H. influenzae type b antigens, respectively. Dot-ELISA showed relative indices of 0.913 for sensitivity and 0.552 for specificity, and a total positivity of 75.6 per cent, being 53.21 per cent for S. pneumoniae and of 22.38 per cent for H. influenzae.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Adolfo Lutz, Department of Immunology, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: H I
authors.initials: HI
authors.lastname: Requejo
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Guerra
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dos Santos
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Cocozza
mesh_terms: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D017714:Community-Acquired Infections; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006192:Haemophilus Infections / Q000175:diagnosis; D006193:Haemophilus influenzae / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D010996:Pleural Effusion / Q000382:microbiology*; D011018:Pneumonia, Pneumococcal / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial / Q000032:analysis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013296:Streptococcus pneumoniae / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial