Pertussis in early life: underdiagnosed, severe, and risky disease. A seven-year experience in a pediatric tertiary-care hospital

Pertussis continues to be a common worldwide infection in pediatric and adult populations. We aimed to study epidemiological and clinical characteristics of infants and children admitted for pertussis to a tertiary-care hospital and to investigate the risk factors for pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admission. With a retrospective study, we analyzed all medical reports of patients admitted to Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital in Rome from January 2011 to December 2018 with a diagnosis of pertussis. We examined 195 patients. The majority of hospitalized children (66.15%) were