Etiology, Seasonality, and Clinical Features of Viral Respiratory Tract Infections in Children Hospitalized With Acute Bronchiolitis: A Single-Center Study

Gökçe, Sule; Kurugöl, Zafer; Koturoglu, Güldane; Çiçek, Candan; Aslan, Asli

In the 1960s, it was reported that the mortality in infants less than 1 year of age diagnosed with bronchiolitis was 4% to 7% for those who were born prematurely and who had an underlying cardiopulmonary disease or immunodeficiency. 11 Today, the mortality rate of AB is low due to the fact that the infants are monitored by some preventive measures such as palivizumab and improved health services. However, there is an increase in the number of infants applying to hospital and hospitalization. Hall et al 38 reported that the yearly incidence of hospitalization due to RSV bronchiolitis for infants aged under 6 months was 17, emergency department visits were 55, and office visits were 132 per 1000 children. Our study has a number of limitations. First, we only investigated the hospitalized patients with acute bronchiolitis, and not the infants who applied to the emergency services or outpatients policlinics, so our study group was small in number. Second, we did not identify other possible agents such as atypical or bacterial pathogens that could cause acute bronchiolitis. Third, a 3-year study period was not adequate compared to other long-term studies.