Abstract

Doc number: 143

Abstract

Background: Acute viral respiratory exacerbation is one of the most common conditions encountered in a paediatric emergency department (PED) during winter months. We aimed at defining clinical predictors of chest radiography prescription and radiographic abnormalities, among infants with bronchiolitis in a paediatric emergency department.

Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of children less than 2 years of age with clinical bronchiolitis, who presented for evaluation at the paediatric emergency department of an urban general hospital in France. Detailed information regarding historical features, examination findings, and management were collected. Clinical predictors of interest were explored in multivariate logistic regression models.

Results: Among 410 chest radiographs blindly interpreted by two experts, 40 (9.7%) were considered as abnormal. Clinical predictors of chest radiography achievement were age (under three months), feeding difficulties, fever over 38°C, hypoxia under than 95% of oxygen saturation, respiratory distress, crackles, and bronchitis rales. Clinical predictors of radiographic abnormalities were fever and close to significance hypoxia and conjunctivitis.

Conclusion: Our study provides arguments for reducing chest radiographs in infants with bronchiolitis. For infants with clinical factors such as age less than three months, feeding difficulties, respiratory distress without hypoxia, isolated crackles or bronchitis rales, careful clinical follow-up should be provided instead of chest radiography.

Details

Title
Clinical predictors of radiographic abnormalities among infants with bronchiolitis in a paediatric emergency department
Author
Ecochard-Dugelay, Emmanuelle; Beliah, Muriel; Perreaux, Francis; de Laveaucoupet, Jocelyne; Bouyer, Jean; Epaud, Ralph; Labrune, Philippe; Ducou-Lepointe, Hubert; Gajdos, Vincent
Pages
143
Publication year
2014
Publication date
2014
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
14712431
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1537145864
Copyright
© 2014 Ecochard-Dugelay et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.