Serum phosphate and magnesium in children recovering from severe acute undernutrition in Ethiopia: an observational study

Table 1 Anthropometric, clinical and biochemistry data for 72 severely malnourished children at admission, by presence of edema^a

	Edema	No edema	P
	(n = 50)	(n = 22)
Female sex	24 (48.0)	8 (36.4)	0.36
Age, months	35 ± 14	26 ± 12	0.01
Anthropometric data
Weight-for-height, z	−2.9 ± 1.6	−4.3 ± 0.9	<0.001
Height-for-age, z	−3.0 ± 2.0	−3.9 ± 1.8	0.059
Mid-upper arm circumference, cm	11.6 ± 1.5	9.5 ± 0.9	<0.001
Clinical data
Axillary temperature, °C	36.3 ± 0.8	36.0 ± 0.6	0.11
Respiratory rate, breaths/min	32.1 ± 4.0	32.2 ± 3.3	0.91
Pulse rate, beats/min	113.4 ± 7.8	114.2 ± 6.6	0.68
Reported morbidity previous month
Fever	40 (80.0)	17 (77.3)	0.79
Malaria	15 (30.0)	6 (27.3)	0.82
Cough or difficult breathing	15 (30.0)	11 (50.0)	0.10
Diarrhea	43 (86.0)	19 (86.4)	0.97
Measles	5 (10.0)	0 (0.0)	0.12
Morbidity ≥ 1	50 (100)	21 (95.5)	0.13
Co-diagnoses
HIV	0 (0.0)	2 (9.1)	0.03
Tuberculosis	0 (0.0)	3 (13.6)	0.01
Persistent diarrhea	2 (4.0)	0 (0.0)	0.34
Pneumonia	13 (26.0)	7 (31.8)	0.61
Co-diagnoses ≥ 1	15 (30.0)	9 (40.9)	0.37
Biochemistry data
Serum albumin, g/L	13.6 ± 6.4	24.1 ± 8.4	<0.001
Serum alpha₁-acid glycoprotein, g/L	2.9 ± 0.8	2.7 ± 1.0	0.39

^a Values presented are mean ± SD or n (%). In 4 children no blood was obtained at admission. 12 blood samples were not analyzed for alpha₁-acid glycoprotein

ISSN: 1471-2431