Evaluation of serum zinc status in hospitalized children aged 1-5 years with pneumonia and gastroenteritis in zahedan

GR SOLEIMANI.MD, S ABTAHI.MD, NM NOORI.MD, M KHALILI.MD

Background: Because zinc deficiency causes stunted growth of children and increases the incidence of infection specially in young children and some studies revealed that administration of zinc can dominantly prevent pneumonia and diarrhea or decrease the attack rates of these two diseases, leading to an increas in lifelong of children, we decided to perform this research on the serum level of zinc and relation of it with two mentioned diseases (Pneumonia, Gastroenteritis) in 1-5 years old children in Ali-Asghar Hospital in zahedan.

 Methods: The study is a case-control study which was performed on 204 children (1-5 y) that divided into 3 equal groups of 68 persons (control ,Pneumonia ,G.E) and randomly were selected .We excluded the cases which hade severe malnutrition .co-infection with pneumonia and G.E. or co-infection with other diseases or consumed zinc supplementation before admission . The serum zinc level was measured by the Atomic Absorption method in chemistry college of S&B University of Zahedan and then the informations were analyzed, interpreted and compared with Fischer and Tulkey exam with SPSS software.

 Results: The results of this study revealed that the mean serum zinc level in children with Pneumonia was 70.5+- 10.95 microgram/dl, in children with G.E. was 75.12 +- 9.09 micro/dl and in control group was 94.9 +-11.96 micro/dl .This differences is valuable (p< 0.001) in statistical study, also there is no valuable differences in serum zinc levels between Pneumonia and G.E. groups and no valuable differences found in sex and age between two groups of cases and control group.

Conclusion: The findings of this study show that serum zinc levels in children with pneumonia or G.E is low, and it seems that administration of zinc supplementations in areas which zinc deficiency is common ,can decrease rate of severe pneumonia and G.E.

Keywords: Pneumonia, Gastroenteritis (G.E), Zinc, children