Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Dec 16, 2023; 11(35): 8284-8290
Published online Dec 16, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i35.8284
Clinical analysis of 114 cases of bronchiolitis in infants
Cheng Shi, Meng-Hua Wu, An Zuo, Mi-Mi Yang, Rong-Rong Jiang
Cheng Shi, Meng-Hua Wu, An Zuo, Mi-Mi Yang, Rong-Rong Jiang, Department of Pediatrics, Tongling Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Tongling 244000, Anhui Province, China
Author contributions: Shi C and Wu MH contributed to study conception and design, and provision of study materials or patients; Shi C contributed to administrative support; Zuo A, Yang MM, and Jiang RR contributed to data collection and assembly; Shi C contributed to data analysis and interpretation, and manuscript writing; all authors contributed to the final approval of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (as revised in 2013). The study was approved by Institutional Review Board of Tongling Maternal and Child Health Hospital.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: All data are provided in this study, and raw data can be obtained from the corresponding author.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Meng-Hua Wu, Doctor, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Pediatrics, Tongling Maternal and Child Health Hospital, No. 98 Yangjiashan Road, Tongguan District, Tongling 244000, Anhui Province, China. menghuawu12@163.com
Received: September 22, 2023
Peer-review started: September 22, 2023
First decision: October 9, 2023
Revised: October 12, 2023
Accepted: December 4, 2023
Article in press: December 4, 2023
Published online: December 16, 2023
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Bronchiolitis is a common lower respiratory tract infection in infants and young children. Severe cases may be accompanied by obvious dyspnea and oxygen saturation decline.

AIM

To summarize the clinical features, standard diagnosis, and treatment of bronchiolitis.

METHODS

This is a retrospective analysis of 114 pediatric patients (74 males, 40 females) who were first diagnosed as having bronchioles at the Department of Pediatrics of Tongling Maternal and Child Health Hospital from January 2019 to December 2019. The clinical features, imaging features, treatment, and other clinical data were recorded and analyzed.

RESULTS

The age of onset of the disease was mainly from 1 mo to 6 mo (75.4%), and the time to hospital visit was mostly from the 2nd day to the 4th day of the course of the disease (75.4%). Lung imaging examination showed increase in lung texture, fuzzy (93.8%). The main treatment was atomization therapy: Budesonide combined with terbutaline (45.6%) and budesonide combined with salbutamol (38.5%). The average hospitalization time was 7.1 ± 2.4 d, and the overall cure rate was 94.7%. In patients without bacterial infection, the use of antibiotics significantly prolonged the length of hospital stay (7.8 ± 2.5 d vs 5.7 ± 1.8 d) and improved the cure rate (98.3% vs 87.9%, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Infants with bronchiolitis are mainly male and tend to have a good prognosis. However, the unneeded use of antibiotics may prolong the length of hospital stay significantly, which imposes the burden both on the patients and hospital system.

Keywords: Bronchiolitis, Diagnosis, Treatment, Infants, Antibiotics, Retrospective analysis

Core Tip: A retrospective analysis of the data of infants and young children with bronchiolitis showed that the disease had a male gender preference, the age of onset was relatively young, and the prognosis was good. Through comparative analysis of the use of antibiotics in infants and young children with bronchiolitis without bacterial infection, it was found that there was controversy over the abuse of antibiotics in the treatment of the disease. Increasing the use of antibiotics can improve the cure rate of patients, but it will prolong the length of hospital stay, and there is controversy over unreasonable use of medical resources.