Long Term Sequelae from Childhood Pneumonia; Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. PLoS ONE 7(2): 2012, e31239. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031239
Edmond K, Scott S, Korczak V, Ward C, Sanderson C, et al.
Children who have poor respiratory function at birth are at risk of developing both pneumonia and later long term respiratory problems. A signficant limitation of our meta-analysis and other studies to date is the lack of information on baseline respiratory status prior to the pneumonia episode. These baseline data were not recorded in any of our included studies. However, other studies have used birth weight as a proxy for early respiratory function and investigated effects of birth weight on pneumonia and long term respiratory outcomes.
These studies demonstrated important associations between childhood pneumonia and long term outcome even after adjusting for birth weight. Other important confounders include cigarette smoking and indoor air pollution, but we were also unable to control for these factors in our multivariable analyses. We had no information on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in our study populations, and only two studies were conducted in countries where HIV infection is highly prevalent.
