Predictive factors for drainage in pediatric cervical lymphadenitis: A study of clinical indicators and recovery outcomes

Background

The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive factors for drainage in patients hospitalized with cervical lymphadenitis in the Pediatrics Infectious Diseases Department and to differentiate the recovery time between patients who received antibiotic treatment only and those who received drainage for their lymphadenitis.

Materials and methods

We retrospectively analyzed 169 patients selected for this study, aged 1 month to 18 years, who were followed up with a diagnosis of cervical lymphadenitis between January 2011 and December 2019. Clinical features such as sex, age, physical examination findings, laboratory findings, imaging findings, and antibiotic treatments were retrospectively reviewed. Patients with lymphadenopathy larger than 2.5 cm, whose initial complaints lasted <28 days, and whose clinical and follow-up data were complete were included in the study.

Results

Of the 169 patients in our study, 137 recovered without drainage and 32 with drainage. In these patients, findings such as an erythrocyte sedimentation rate >53.5 mm/h, platelet count >436,000/mm³, unilaterality, outpatient antibiotic use, and the lymph node ratio of short axis to long axis >0.5 were found to be predictive factors for lymph node drainage.

Conclusions

Evaluation of patients with cervical lymphadenitis with physical examination, laboratory and imaging findings, and consideration of the factors predicting drainage with fine needle aspiration as soon as possible will shorten the length of hospital stay.