Quantification of fecal adenovirus viral load and correlation with Vesikari Score in children with acute gastroenteritis

BACKGROUND: Human adenoviruses (HAdVs) are an important cause of acute respiratory tract infections, conjunctivitis, hemorrhagic cystitis, and gastroenteritis. In addition to enteric serotypes 40 and 41, some serotypes belonging to subgroups A, B, and C have also been implicated to be etiological agents of gastroenteritis among infants and young children. The Vesikari Scoring System (VSS) is the severity scale that was originally developed to evaluate the effectiveness and efficacy of rotavirus vaccines on 20 points. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the diagnostic value of the VSS with HAdVs genome quantification in fecal samples collected from hospitalized children with acute gastroenteritis.METHODS: A total of 137 fecal specimens (69 male and 68 female) were tested for HAdVs. The samples were collected from under-five-year-old children with acute gastroenteritis in pediatric Hospital Regina Margherita of Turin in Italy.RESULTS: A total of 69 out of 137 (50.3%) samples were associated with HAdV genomic detection with a mean viral load of 1.08×1011±9.02×1011 genomes/mg fecal specimens. The samples were grouped on the basis of Mild VSS and Moderate VSS and the HAdV viral load was calculated in the two groups. No statistical differences were observed between two groups (P=0.6123 calculated by Mann-Whitney Test).CONCLUSIONS: Our results did not show a difference in mean viral load between the group with mild VVS and moderate VVS.