1 From the Departments of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville
Thirty-eight pediatric outpatients with pneumonia were studied by counterimmunoelectrophoresis for the presence of Haemophilus influenzae type b or pneumococcal antigenuria. Of the 38 patients eight (21%) hadH influenzae type b antigenuria and two (5%) had pneumococcal antigenuria. H influenzae, type b antigenuria was detected more frequently in patients <2 years of age than in older children. Urine counterimmunoelectrophoriesis appears to be a useful tool for the etiologic diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia and should facilitate further studies of the epidemiology, pathogenesis, and clinical spectrum of this disease.
Key Words: counterimmunoelectrophoresis bacterial pneumonia
Submitted on May 27, 1982
Accepted on August 3, 1982