Objective  To explore the correlation between blood lipid levels and Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP) in children.

  Methods  A cross-sectional study design was adopted, and 340 children with MPP were divided into mild group (n=204) and severe group (n=136) according to the severity of the disease. The clinical data and laboratory results were compared between the two groups.

  Results  The age, height, body mass and serum creatinine (Scr) level of children in the severe group were significantly smaller and lower than those in the mild group, and the hospital stay, total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were significantly longer and higher than those in the mild group (P < 0.05). Spearman correlation analysis and Pearson correlation analysis showed that age, height, body mass and Scr level were significantly negatively correlated with severity of MPP and hospital stay (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01), while TC and LDL-C were significantly positively correlated with severity of MPP and hospital stay (P < 0.01). Logistic regression equation showed that age, body mass, TC and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) were the independent risk factors for incidence of severe MPP (P < 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the best cut-off value of TC in the diagnosis of severe MPP was 2.935 mmol/L, the area under the curve was 0.787 (95%CI, 0.725~0.851, P=0.001), the Youden index was 0.29, the sensitivity was 92.90%, and the specificity was 36.10%. When the serum TC level of children was higher than 2.935 mmol/L, the risk of suffering severe MPP increased by 8.71 times.

  Conclusion  Level of blood lipids in children is significantly related to the progression of MPP, and it has a certain predictive value for severe pneumonia.