Objective: to determine the clinical picture in children who often get sick, taking into account the currently available data from the medical literature and authors’ observations accumulated over the past 25 years of clinical practice. Materials and methods. The design of the study was clinical and diagnostic and included the search for ways to diagnose and treat pathological conditions that compose the current clinical picture of children who often get sick. The studies were prospective and retrospective, longitudinal, with long-term follow-up of a certain part of the same patients for 1–10 years after diagnosis of “frequently ill child” and appropriate treatment. In terms of the effectiveness of the results, the researches were direct, because it undoubtedly contributed to the recovery of the child with the improvement/normalization of his general state and quality of life. The studies were multicenter, conducted in an outpatient setting at the premises of two clinics specialized in the field of chronic infectious diseases, with full laboratory researches and the department of pediatric infectious diseases of the medical university. The participants were children from infancy to 14 years of age, whose parents in 2009–2020 consulted with complaints about frequent illnesses of their children. Results. In 2010–2020, the authors supervised 3,547 children, who often get sick (6–12 episodes a year and even more: 1–2 diseases a month), and the period of each episode of their illness lasted more than 5–7 days. There were 862/3,547 (24.3 %) children under 3 years of age, 1,295/3,547 (36.5 %) from 3 to 7 years of age, and 1,390/3,547 (39.2 %) from 7 to 14 years of age. Given the clinically dominant symptoms, which are often intertwined into one holistic picture of these common diseases, children were divided into two large groups of observations. Group I, which was conventionally called “Clinical picture of frequently ill children with purulent-inflammatory diseases”, included 1,595/3,547 patients (45 %). Another 1,952/3,547 (55 %) individuals were included in group II with a conditional name “Clinical picture of frequently ill children with dominant toxic manifestations”. The second group of patients who often get sick also includes patients with fever not associated with acute purulent-inflammatory conditions or their recurrences. This group under supervision consisted of 1,952/3,547 (55 %) children — from infancy to 14 years with thermoregulatory disorders, including persistent low-grade fever — 1,206/1,952 (61.8 %), febrile seizures — 721/1952 (36.9 %) and 25/1,952 (1.3 %) children of mostly school age with fever at the level of 38–40 ºC and above for several months to 4 years and other symptoms of chronic bacterial intoxication syndrome. All children were examined bacteriologically (nasopharyngeal, oral swab culture, etc., as well as warm urine tests three times, three days in a row), toxicologically using Toxicon diagnostic system; they also underwent general clinical examinations, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and polymerase chain reaction, determination of immunological status, according to indicators — instrumental examination. Two foci of chronic bacterial infection were found to be present in all frequently ill children: in the nasopharynx, which in 3,467/3,547, or 97.7 % of cases, was associated with S.aureus, and in the kidneys (nephrodysbacteriosis), which was dominated by enterococci and Escherichia coli accounted for almost 2/3 (3,312/5,313, or 63 %) of all isolated urinary strains and detected in the urine of a total of 3,312/3,547 (93.4 %) children. Based on toxicological examination of the blood, severe toxemia was found in the vast majority of children (77/96, or 80.2 %), 16/96 (16.7 %) had moderate and only 3/96 (3.1 %) — mild form. The form of intoxication was mainly compensated in 87/96 (90.6 %) patients, another 9/96 (9.4 %) had generalization stage. When determining the immune status studied in 2,160/3,547 (60.1 %) of frequently ill children from infancy to 14 years of age in both observation groups, it was found that cellular and humoral immunity was usually either within normal limits or often even higher than normal. Only in 67/2,160 (3.1 %) cases, mild cellular immunodeficiency was detected, and in 7/2,160 (0.3 %) children — selective IgA deficiency. Treatment of all 3,547 frequently ill children of both observation groups was performed using bacterial autovaccines made from strains isolated during bacteriological examination. The number of children who underwent treatment the consequences of which can be considered established and not associated with concomitant use of antibacterial drugs was 3,159/3,547, or 89.1 %. In total, 3,093/3159, or 97.9 % of frequently ill children, recovered completely within 6–24 months after starting antibiotic-free bacterial autovaccine treatment. Conclusions. The clinical picture of a child who often gets sick is currently collective and consists of symptoms of recurrent respiratory diseases or recurrent acute respiratory viral infections, recurrent purulent-inflammatory diseases of the nose, pharynx, mouth, ears, eyes and bronchopulmonary system, as well as clinical manifestations of chronic bacterial intoxication syndrome developed on the background of nephrodysbacteriosis. The etiological and pathogenetic diagnosis is confirmed by the results of bacteriological and toxicological examinations. Standard treatment of frequently ill children using antibiotics is not effective. A positive clinical effect can be achieved in 97.9 % of children with complete recovery after the use of bacterial autovaccines made from strains isolated during bacteriological examination.
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