There have been fewer reports on Chlamydia pneumoniae infection during childhood than those in adults, although many of the C. pneumoniae infections occurred during childhood based on prevalence of the antibody. And there have been no reports concerning the double infection of C. pneumoniae and M. pneumoniae.
We reported three cases of children with the double infection. We diagnosed this from significant alteration of these antibodies from the acute to convalescent phases. We omitted the cases without significant alteration of the antibodies, even diagnosed from isolation or detection of the antigens in the samples by direct fluorescent antibody.
Case 1 was an 8-year-old-boy who was admitted to our hospital because of fever, cough with vomitting and erythema multiforme. The symptoms did not subside after administration of clindamycine but subsided after minocycline. Case 2 was an 1-year-old-boy who was admitted because of fever, cough, rhinorrhea and vomitting. C. pneumoniae organisms were isolated from the pharyngeal swab specimen. the symptoms subsided after administration of clindamycine. Case 3 was a 9-year-old boy who was admitted because of fever and a cough followed by erythema multiforme. The symptoms did not decrease after administration of clindamycine but after minocycline. The characteristic of these cases are a strong cough with comiting, weak response of acute reactants on the laboratory data, and skin eruption similar with that due to M. mycoplasmae in two of the three cases. We suspect that these double infections may induce the eruption, about which there have been no previous reports.
