Intestinal detoxification time of hand-foot-and-mouth disease in children with EV71 infection and the related factors

Background: Hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) is a common pediatric infectious disease caused by a variety of intestinal viruses. Enterovirus 71 (EV71) is the primary pathogen that might cause severe symptoms and even death in children with HFMD. This study aimed to investigate the intestinal detoxification time of HFMD children with EV71 infection and its related factors.

Methods: Sixty-five HFMD children with EV71 infection were followed up. Their stool samples were collected once every 4 to 7 days. Viral nucleic acids were detected by fluorescent polymerase chain reaction until the results became negative. The positive rates of viral nucleic acids were analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method. The Log-rank test and Cox-Mantel test were used to analyze factors affecting the HFMD children with EV71 infection.

Results: On the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 10th week, the positive rates of viral nucleic acids in stool samples of the 65 children were 94.6%, 48.1%, 17.2% and 0, respectively. Univariate analysis showed that the intestinal detoxification time of the children were related to gender, pre-admission disease course, severity of disease, and use of steroids or gamma globulin (P<0.05). Multivariate analysis showed that the severity of disease was an independent factor affecting the intestinal detoxification time (P<0.05), with a relative risk of 2.418.

Conclusions: The longest intestinal detoxification time of HFMD children with EV71 infection was 10 weeks. The severity of disease was an important factor affecting the intestinal detoxification time of HFMD children with EV71 infection. Severe HFMD children with EV71 infection had a longer intestinal detoxification time.