UMEM Educational Pearls

Question

Predictive factors of asthma development in patients diagnosed with bronchiolitis include:

- Male sex (OR 1.3)

- Family history of asthma (OR 1.6)

- Age greater than 5 months at the time of bronchiolitis diagnosis (OR 1.4)

- More than 2 episodes of bronchiolitis (OR 2.4)

- Allergies (OR 1.6)

Answer

This was a retrospective study of 1991 children younger than 2 years that presented between 2000-2010 who were diagnosed with bronchiolitis.  Primary care records were reviewed 1 year after their visit to the ED to see if the patient had a primary care diagnosis of asthma. 

Of the initial study population, 817 patients had received a diagnosis of asthma at 1 year.

Since these patients were only followed up at 1 year, the amount of children who were later diagnosed with asthma may be underestimated.

References

Waseem et al.  Factors Predicting Asthma in children with Acute Bronchiolitis.  Pediatric Emergency Care.  March 2017.  Epub ahead of print.