Enteroviral and herpes simplex virus central nervous system infections in infants < 90 days old: a Paediatric Investigators’ Collaborative Network on Infections in Canada (PICNIC) study

Table 1 Comparison of demographic, clinical and outcome features in infants with HSV and EV meningitis by univariate analysis

	Characteristics	HSV N = 7	EV N = 103	P-Value^a
Demographic	Male gender, n (%)	3 (43)	54 (52)	0.71
	Age at onset (d), median (IQR)	14 (6–19)	25 (12–33)	0.02
	Overall	16 (6–19)	10 (6–27)	1.0
	Subset fulfilling meningoencephalitis criteria [Proportion (%) age < 28d]	[6/6 (100)]	[6/7 (86)]	1.0
	Gestation (wks), median (IQR)	37 (37–38)	37 (29–38)	0.31
Clinical	ICU admission, n (%)	4 (57)	12/98 (12)	0.010
	Seizures, n (%)
	Had at least one seizure at any time	4 (57)	5 (5)	.001
	Had a seizure in first 72 h of admission	2 (29)	3 (3)	0.03
	Had at least one seizure during the admission	3 (43)	5 (5)	0.008
	Had seizures only after discharge	1 (16)	0 (0)	0.06
	Multisystemic infection^b	5 (71)	8 (8)	< 0.001
	Coinfection with bacteria or fungus, n (%)	1 (14)	4 (4)	0.28
Imaging	Abnormal head imaging^c, n (%)	4/7 (57)	5/26 (19)	0.068
Imaging	Meningoencephalitis, n (%)	6/7 (86)	7 (7)	< 0.001
Hospital stay	Length of stay (d), median (IQR)	25 (21–43)	3 (3–5)	< 0.001
Follow-up	Follow-up (mo), median (IQR)	16 (10–24)	6 (1–12)	0.03
Neurodevelopmental or neurological sequelae	Neurodevelopmental abnormalities at discharge or follow-up^d, n (%)	3/6 (50)	7/102 (7)	0.01
Outcomes	Death or neurological complications^e or neurodevelopmental abnormalities, n (%)
	All infants	4/7 (57)	8 (8)	0.002
	Infants with encephalitis	4/6 (67)	4/7 (57)	1.00

Legend: CSF cerebrospinal fluid, EV enterovirus, HSV herpes simplex virus, IQR interquartile range, mo months
^aFor comparison of proportions, Fishers exact test (2-sided) was used; for comparison of medians, Mann-Whitney test was used
^bThese were identified as independent risk factors after controlling for age and ICU admission, respectively
^cThis comparison was limited to those abnormalities that were consistent with CNS infection
^dAll infants with long-term seizures had neurodevelopmental delay (range mild to profound)
^e After adjusting for multiple comparisons (Bonferroni correction), these variables remained significant

ISSN: 1471-2431