By Birgitte Boysen Kjær
Summary
Chairman: Birthe Høgh
Opponent: Bent Klug
Opponent: Henrik Permin
ABSTRACT
Disease from Mycoplasma (M.) pneumoniae is less well described for pre-school children than for school-age children, where the infection is known to have variable clinical manifestations. Pneumonia is the most important manifestation and occurs in up to 30% of school age children, but overall pneumonia represents less than 5 – 10% of the infections. M. pneumoniae is known to exacerbate asthma and has also been associated with the development of asthma in case-control studies or case-reports.
The thesis consists of the following papers:
Paper I
Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in early childhood. Disease presentation in 0-to-5-year old children. Birgitte Boysen Kjær, Anders Mørup Jensen, Anders Fomsgaard, Louise Torp Dalgaard, Jørgen Skov Jensen.
Paper II
Lung function and bronchial responsiveness after Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in early childhood. Birgitte Boysen Kjær, Jørgen Skov Jensen, Kim G. Nielsen, Anders Fomsgaard, Blenda Böttiger, Birthe Dohn, Hans Bisgaard.
Conclusion
The classification of participants for the studies of this thesis is considered of satisfactory validity based on the described accuracy of the M. pneumoniae PCR test.