The Frequency of Escherichia coli Pathotypes in Children with Acute Diarrhea Referred to Children's Teaching Hospital, 2014

Escherichia coli is among the most important causes of bacterial diarrhea, especially in children. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of E. coli pathotypes in children with acute diarrhea referred to Teaching and Treatment Center.
This study was performed as a cross-sectional study on febrile children with acute diarrhea aged 1 month to 5 years, who referred to Teaching and Treatment Center in 2014. Before starting antibiotics, stool samples of all patients, were sent to the hospital laboratory for culture. In case of positive culture, patients entered the study, then pathogenic types of E. coli were identified using multiplex PCR method. Patient information, such as age, gender, season, and stool test results of the obtained pathotypes, were analyzed by statistical tests of Chi-square, variance, Mann-Whitney, and t-test.
A total of 51 children with E. coli-induced acute diarrhea, were studied. Eighteen children (35.3%) were male and 33 (64.7%) were female. There were no significant differences among different pathotypes of E. coli in terms of age and gender distribution. The frequency of RBC and WBC in stool was not significantly different among diarrhea induced by different pathotypes of E. coli.
The result of the current study showed that the most common pathotype in E. coli-induced diarrheas in children is EHEC. There was no significant difference among different strains of E. coli in terms of age, gender, season of hospitalization, and stool test result.