Mycoplasma pneumoniae Infections in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Background: Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common causative agent of community-acquired and atypical pneumonia. M. pneumoniae-associated respiratory tract infections are most often mild and self-limiting in nature, and severe courses of disease are not common.
 Aims and Objectives: We aimed to analyze respiratory samples of hospitalized patients by real-time (RT) PCR for M. pneumoniae infections.
 Methodology: In this study, hospitalized patients with respiratory symptoms including nasal congestion, rhinorrhea, nasal discharge, wheezing, sore throat and cough, were tested for Mycoplasma pneumoniae between April 2018 and March 2020 and the results of these patients were analyzed retrospectively.
 Results: We retrospectively investigated the results of 1245 nasopharyngeal swab samples. Records of 693 (55.7%) male and 552 (44.3%) female patients between 0-93 years were investigated.All of the patients were below 26 years. There were 37 M. pneumoniae positive patients and the highest M. pneumoniae positivity was in 2-5 age group, with 16 children. M. pneumoniae positivity rate was highest in the 0-1 age group with 8.3%. There were 19 co-infections with viruses and rhino/enterovirus (n=12) was the most frequent accompanying virus.
 Conclusion: M. pneumonia infections are found in about 3% of respiratory samples. M. pneumoniae is usually a part of co-infections accompanied by bacteria and viruses. Patients with respiratory infection symptoms should be diagnosed with multiplex rapid PCR panels including M. pneumoniae.