Epidemiological Correlation between Fecal Adenovirus Subgroups and Pediatric Intussusception in Korea

We investigated the adenoviral etiology and seasonal epidemic trends in intussusception and each adenoviral subgroup. Also we confirmed whether we can use the adenovirus data of Acute Infectious Agents Laboratory Surveillance Report (AIALSR) as an epidemic predictor of intussusception. Patients with intussusception (n = 126), < 5 years old, were enrolled and matched by age and sex with controls suffering acute gastroenteritis without intussusception (n = 106), all recruited at 8 centers. All fecal specimens were assayed for adenovirus, including subgroups A, B, C, E, and F, with reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Adenovirus was detected in 53 cases and 13 controls (P < 0.001). Nonenteric adenoviruses (NEAds) were detected in 51 cases and four controls (P < 0.001). We used Spearman's correlation analysis to analyze the incidence of intussusception and adenoviral epidemic trends, and compared them with fecal and respiratory adenoviral epidemic trends in the AIALSR. The trend of intussusception correlated with total NEAds (r = 0.635; P = 0.011), as did the fecal AIALSR adenovirus trends (r = 0.572; P = 0.026). Among the NEAd subgroups, subgroup C was dominant (P < 0.001), but subgroups B (P = 0.007) and E (P = 0.013) were also significant to intussusception. However, only subgroup C showed a significant epidemic correlation (r = 0.776; P = 0.001) with intussusception. Not respiratory but fecal AIALSR adenovirus trends correlated with the incidence of NEAds and intussusception. We suggest the possibility of using fecal AIALSR adenovirus data as an approximate epidemic predictor of intussusception.