Do Infants with Mild Bronchiolitis and Oxygen Desaturations at Home Have Higher Risk of Unscheduled Return Visits?

In a prospective study of previously healthy term infants discharged from a pediatric emergency department (ED) in Toronto with mild bronchiolitis, investigators compared unscheduled medical visits within 72 hours between infants with and without oxygen desaturations during home oximetry monitoring. Desaturation was defined as at least one documented oxygen desaturation to <90% lasting at least 1 minute.

Of 118 infants (mean age, 5 months), 75 (64%) had at least one desaturation at home (mean monitoring period, 20 hours). Of these, 59 (79%) had desaturations to ≤80% and 29 (39%) had desaturations to ≤70%. The median duration of continuous desaturation was 3.4 minutes; a median of 3.6% of time was spent with oxygen saturations below 90%.

The r…