Loading...
Typical presentation of pertussis in children and adolescents is prolonged coughing illness, frequently accompanied by inspiratory “whoop” and post-tussive emesis. Improved testing for pertussis with polymerase chain reaction identifies mild or even asymptomatic disease in older children and adolescents. Wheezing is not typically described as a symptom of pertussis and might steer clinicians away from considering this diagnosis in vaccinated patients. To examine clinical characteristics of pertussis, investigators in California retrospectively reviewed the charts of 501 patients (age ≤18 years; mean age, 8 years) who tested positive for pertussis in a 6-month period during the 2010 outbreak.
In all, 49% of patients reported a classic pertuss…