Emergency Department Use of Chest X-Rays for Pediatric Asthma, Bronchiolitis, and Croup

National data reveal trends toward increasing use of chest radiographs, particularly among EDs that are not pediatric-focused.

To characterize nationwide trends in emergency department (ED) utilization of chest radiographs for pediatric asthma, bronchiolitis, and croup, investigators retrospectively evaluated data from the CDC for more than 13 million children who were diagnosed with one of these conditions between 1995 and 2009. Children studied were those aged 2 to 18 years with asthma, those aged 3 months to 1 year with bronchiolitis, and those aged 3 months to 6 years with croup.

Use of radiographs increased over time only for patients with moderate to severe asthma (odds ratio, 1.06 per year; overall OR, 2.4). In multivariate logistic regression analysis, pediatric-focused EDs (defined as those for which >80% of visits were by children younger than 18 years) we…

Reviewing Author

Katherine Bakes, MD

Disclosures

RoyaltiesEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier)

Grant/Research SupportDepartment of Justice

Editorial BoardsEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier); Rosen’s Emergency Medicine (Elsevier)

Katherine Bakes, MD

Disclosures

RoyaltiesEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier)

Grant/Research SupportDepartment of Justice

Editorial BoardsEmergency Medicine Secrets (Elsevier); Rosen’s Emergency Medicine (Elsevier)

Emergency Department Use of Chest X-Rays for Pediatric Asthma, Bronchiolitis, and Croup

Topics

Reviewing Author