ArticleFrontiers in medicine2026
Case Report: Plastic bronchitis temporally associated with bordetella pertussis infection in a vaccinated child.
Article in Frontiers in medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: To describe the clinical presentation, diagnostic process, management, and potential mechanisms of plastic bronchitis (PB) temporally associated with Bordetella pertussis infection in a vaccinated child. Methods: This case report follows the CARE (Case Report) guidelines. We describe the clinical course of a 6-year-old boy with PB complicating lower respiratory tract infection, including clinical features, laboratory findings, imaging, bronchoscopy, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) pathogen detection, treatment, and follow-up. Results: The patient presented with a 4-day history of cough and fever without the classical inspiratory "whoop" of pertussis. He had completed routine pertussis immunization. Chest computed tomography (CT) demonstrated right middle lobe atelectasis with bilateral pulmonary inflammation. Despite symptomatic improvement following empirical antimicrobial therapy, atelectasis persisted. Flexible bronchoscopy revealed obstructive mucopurulent airway casts consistent with PB, which were removed. BALF pathogen detection identified Bordetella pertussis and Rhinovirus A as high-confidence pathogens, with Aspergillus fumigatus and Epstein-Barr virus detected at lower confidence levels. After bronchoscopic intervention and pathogen-directed therapy, symptoms resolved completely and imaging confirmed lung re-expansion. No recurrence was observed during 6 months of follow-up. Conclusion: This case reports a potential temporal association between PB and Bordetella pertussis infection in a vaccinated child with atypical clinical features. To our knowledge, this is the first documented case of PB temporally associated with B. pertussis. However, causality cannot be definitively established due to the presence of copathogens and the low sequence count of the bacterium. Early bronchoscopy with BALF analysis should be considered in children with pneumonia complicated by persistent atelectasis or poor response to empirical therapy.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.