{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,30]],"date-time":"2025-07-30T15:52:51Z","timestamp":1753890771718,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,1]],"date-time":"2021-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1625097600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["91546203, 91846302"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["91546203, 91846302"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background<\/jats:title><jats:p>The pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) brings new challenges for pediatricians, especially in the differentiation with non-COVID-19 pneumonia in the peak season of pneumonia. We aimed to compare the clinical characteristics of pediatric patients with COVID-19 and other respiratory pathogens infected pneumonias.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>We conducted a multi-center, cross-sectional study of pediatric inpatients in China. Based on pathogenic test results, pediatric patients were divided into three groups, including COVID-19 pneumonia group, Non-COVID-19 viral (NCV) pneumonia group and Non-viral (NV) pneumonia group. Their clinical characteristics were compared by Kruskal-Wallis H test or chi-square test.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>A total of 636 pediatric pneumonia inpatients, among which 87 in COVID-19 group, 194 in NCV group, and 355 in NV group, were included in analysis. Compared with NCV and NV patients, COVID-19 patients were older (median age 6.33, IQR 2.00-12.00 years), and relatively fewer COVID-19 patients presented fever (63.2%), cough (60.9%), shortness of breath (1.1%), and abnormal pulmonary auscultation (18.4%). The results were verified by the comparison of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza A (IFA) pneumonia patients. Approximately 42.5%, 44.8%, and 12.6% of the COVID-19 patients presented simply ground-glass opacity (GGO), simply consolidation, and the both changes on computed tomography (CT) scans, respectively; the proportions were similar as those in NCV and NV group (p&amp;gt;0.05). Only 47.1% of COVID-19 patients had both lungs pneumonia, which was significantly lower than that proportion of nearly 80% in the other two groups. COVID-19 patients presented lower proportions of increased white blood cell count (16.5%) and abnormal procalcitonin (PCT) (10.7%), and a higher proportion of decreased lymphocyte count (44.0%) compared with the other two groups.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>Majority clinical characteristics of pediatric COVID-19 pneumonia patients were milder than non-COVID-19 patients. However, lymphocytopenia remained a prominent feature of COVID-19 pediatric pneumonia.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fcimb.2021.663884","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,7,1]],"date-time":"2021-07-01T17:01:39Z","timestamp":1625158899000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Comparison of Clinical Characteristics Among COVID-19 and Non-COVID-19 Pediatric Pneumonias: A Multicenter Cross-Sectional 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