QJM : monthly journal of the Association of Physicians
August 1, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Evaluation of zinc status of critically ILL patients (infants and toddlers) admitted to pediatric intensive care units and its correlation to their outcome.
Elraof Mohamed MA, Ibrahim HM, Elgendy YG, Bakry NA.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
A prospective study of critically ill young children found that nearly half had low zinc levels on admission, but zinc deficiency was not significantly linked to illness severity or length of PICU stay.
What was studied
A prospective observational cohort study of 82 critically ill children aged 1 month to 3 years admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit, measuring serum zinc levels on admission alongside clinical and laboratory parameters, and examining correlations between zinc status and illness severity/outcome measures (antibiotic duration, respiratory support duration, Glasgow Coma Scale score, PICU stay).
Key findings
- 43.9% of the 82 patients (mean age 10.5 ± 9.6 months) had low serum zinc levels on admission.
- There was a statistically significant positive correlation between adequate zinc intake and head circumference Z-score (P=.012), but no significant correlation was found between zinc level and illness severity measures (antibiotic duration, respiratory support duration, Glasgow Coma Scale score; P=.258, .214, .138 respectively) or PICU length of stay (P=.216).
Clinical relevance
This may be relevant to pediatric intensivists, suggesting that while zinc deficiency is common among critically ill young children, routine zinc status assessment may not need to drive acute severity-of-illness management decisions, though its relationship to growth (head circumference) warrants further attention.
Who should care
Limitations
Modest single-center sample size (82 patients); cross-sectional admission zinc measurement cannot capture how zinc status changes during the PICU course or its longer-term developmental implications.
Zinc deficiency was common among critically ill young children, but it did not appear to meaningfully affect illness severity or PICU length of stay in this study.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Background
Zinc deficiency is common among critically ill children; but there is still debate about zinc deficiency and severity of illness in PICU.
Objective
The study aimed to measure the serum zinc level in critically ill children on admission and to correlate the effect of zinc deficiency on outcome of critically ill children.
Methods
A prospective observational cohort study was conducted at a Children's Hospital on 82 patients aged between 1 month to 3years, admitted to the PICU with acute illness, excluding chronic medical conditions that affect zinc status. All were subjected to physical examination, anthropometric measurements, laboratory investigation (Complete blood count, C-reactive protein, serum albumin, serum zinc level) and outcomes.
Results
The study included 82 patients; their mean age was (10.5 ± 9.6) months, 53.7% were males, 46.3% were females. The study found that 43.9% of patients had low serum zinc levels. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between adequate zinc intake and head circumference Z-score (p-value=0.012). No correlation was found between zinc level and illness severity as measured by antibiotics duration, respiratory support duration, and Glasgow Coma Scale score (p-value = 0.258, 0.214, 0.138) respectively. Moreover, no correlation was found between the zinc level and PICU stay (p-value=0.216).
Conclusion
zinc deficiency was prevalent among critically ill pediatric patients, but its impact on clinical outcomes and severity of illness was not statistically significant.
DOI
10.1093/qjmed/hcag168.108
PMID
42689347
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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