Table 3.
Clinical characteristics of control and RSV-positive infants included in the qPCR analysis
| Control | Mild | Moderate | Severe | Sig. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | 19 | 16 | 7 | 19 | |||||
| Age - months, median (IQR) | 3 | (1 – 5) | 4 | (1 – 7) | 2 | (1 – 4) | 2 | (1 – 4) | p = 0.61 |
| Male gender, n (%) | 11 | (58%) | 7 | (44%) | 6 | (86%) | 9 | (47%) | p = 0.52 |
| Weight - g, mean (SD) | 5773 | (1647) | 7098 | (2350) | 6615 | (1392) | 5826 | (1845) | p = 0.23 |
| Duration of symptoms - days, median (IQR) | 4.5 | (3 – 6) | 5 | (4 – 5) | 4 | (3 – 5) | p = 0.74 | ||
| Admission, n (%) | 2 | (13%) | 7 | (100%) | 19 | (100%) | |||
| Length of stay, median (IQR) | 0 | (0 – 0) | 3 | (1 – 4) | 4 | (2 – 6) | p = 0.35 | ||
| Length of stay > 3 days, n (%) | 0 | (0%) | 2 | (29%) | 10 | (56%) | p = 0.26 | ||
| Respiratory Distress | |||||||||
| SpO2 -% on admission, mean (SD) | 98 | (2.5) | 98 | (2.5) | 93 | (6) | p = 0.0037 | ||
| Respiratory rate /min on admission, mean (SD) | 50 | (14) | 57 | (8) | 61 | (13) | p = 0.067 | ||
| Respiratory rate score (max. 8), median (IQR) | 1.5 | (0 – 5) | 4 | (2 – 6) | 4 | (2 – 6) | p = 0.164 | ||
| Retraction score (max. 9), median (IQR) | 1 | (0 – 2) | 5 | (2 – 6) | 2 | (1 – 4) | p = 0.0064 | ||
| Wheeze score (max. 8), median (IQR) | 1 | (0 – 3) | 4 | (4 – 5) | 2 | (2 – 4.5) | p = 0.0534 | ||
| m-RDAI, median (IQR) | 6 | (1 – 8) | 13 | (9 – 16) | 9 | (7 – 13) | p = 0.0044 | ||
| p = 0.095 | |||||||||
| Treatments | |||||||||
| Fluid supplement, n (%) | 8 | (42%) | |||||||
| Intravenous fluids, n (%) | 2 | (11%) | |||||||
| Nasogastric fluid, n (%) | 7 | (37%) | |||||||
| Oxygen supplement, n (%) | 16 | (84%) | |||||||
| CPAP, n (%) | 3 | (16%) | |||||||
| Respirator, n (%) | 0 | ||||||||
Note: There are no significant differences in age, weight or gender between control and RSV-positive groups. Duration of symptoms for disease subgroups was similar. The severe disease group had a lower SpO2 on admission, but tended to less respiratory distress than the moderate group, as measured by the m-RDAI. The retraction score in particular contributed to this difference. Length of hospital stay was statistically similar for moderate and severe disease groups, probably due to loss of power when excluding samples with poor RNA quality (when including all children regardless of RNA quality, the median length of stay and IQR are relatively unchanged, but Mann–Whitney p = 0.048, indicating a longer hospital stay for the severe disease group). The most common treatment for children with severe disease was oxygen supplementation.
1Mann-Whitney test, comparing control group with RSV-positive group.
2Fischer’s exact test, comparing control group with RSV-positive group.
3 T-test, comparing control group with RSV-positive group.
4Kruskal-Wallis test, comparing disease severity subgroups.
5Mann-Whitney test, comparing moderate and severe disease subgroups.
6Fischer’s exact test, comparing moderate and severe disease subgroups.
7One-way ANOVA, comparing disease severity subgroups.