[Legionnaires' disease in children].

During the first nine months of 1987, the bacteriological and virological tests as well as the indirect fluorescence test to Legionella pneumophila were performed in 40 children with bronchopneumonia (one- or both-sided) or pleuropneumonia and in 10 children with protracted bronchitis. In a 15 month old boy we have proved (by titer dynamics) the infection with Legionella pneumophila serotype 5, and in a 15 month old girl and in a 16 month old boy serotype 1. The infection was sporadic and the possible source of infection was unknown. The course of the disease was not wasting and the infection was accompanied with fever. The patients had an increased sedimentation rate of red cells and leukocytosis. All the other laboratory findings were within normal limits. In seven children seropositiveness 1:256 to Legionella pneumophila serotype 1, and in two children an increased titer to adenovirus was proved. The high titer to Legionella pneumophila in those seven children indicates an early contact with the causal agent. The patients were successfully treated with cefuroxim, which is not the drug of choice. Infection due to Legionella pneumophila in children does not exhibit a clinical or laboratory characteristic features that differ from those of the other respiratory diseases in children. It means that Legionnaires' disease in children with intact immunity is not the wasting illness. We stress the importance of using serologic examination to Legionella pneumophila as a routine procedure in the aetiological diagnosis of respiratory diseases in children.