Acute Bronchiolitis: Epidemiological and Clinical Study

Background:   Bronchiolitis is an acute inflammatory obstruction of small airways in children that occurs in first two years of life and is characterized by fever, rhinitis, cough, tachypnea, expiratory wheeze and increased respiratory effort. Objective:   To study epidemiological and clinical features in children with acute bronchiolitis. Study design:   Descriptive study. Setting:   Department of Paediatrics, King Edward Medical University/ Mayo Hospital, Lahore. Duration:   Six months (October 2006 to March 2007). Subjects and Methods:   After consent from parents, one hundred and seven children of age between 2months to 2years with the first episode consistent with clinical case definition of bronchiolitis were included by using convenient sampling. Results:   A total of 107 children were included. Mean age was 11.3 ± 5 months. Male to female ratio was 1.3. Mean weight 9.3 ± 2.2 kg, mean head circumference 44.1 ± 2.7 cm, and mean length was 71.6 ± 7.5 cm. Forty eight percent children were bottle fed and 38% were breast fed. Thirty eight percent children had family history of acute respiratory tract illness while 14% children had family history of allergy. Among total of 107 children, 91% had respiratory distress at the time of pre-sentation, 76% had nasal flaring, 72% wheezing, 64% had fever, 41% retractions and 32% had decreased feeding. Conclusion:   Overwhelming majority of children suffering from acute bronchiolitis was less than one year of age. There was male predominance. Most of the children were bottle fed. Main presenting features of acute bronchiolitis were respiratory distress, nasal flaring and wheezing. Key words:   Bronchiolitis, respiratory tract infection, wheezing.