Clinical evaluation of wheezy chest in children below 2 years of age in Hawler governorate

Parween N. Ahmed; Dlair AbdulKhalik Chalabi; Kawes O. Hamad Zangana

doi:10.15218/zjms.2012.0005

Authors

Parween N. Ahmed Erbil surgical cardiac center, Erbil, Iraq.
Dlair AbdulKhalik Chalabi Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Hawler Medical University, Erbil, Iraq.
Kawes O. Hamad Zangana Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Hawler Medical University, Erbil, Iraq

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15218/zjms.2012.0005

Keywords:

Wheezy child, Bronchiolitis, Bronchopneumonia, Asthma

Abstract

Background and objectives: Acute respiratory tract infection is a leading cause of childhood morbidity & mortality in developing countries .respiratory distress with wheezing in infants is quite common & presents substantial diagnostic problems. The aim is to determine the clinical characteristics of wheezy chest in children below 2 years of age in Raparin pediatric hospital in Hawler Governorate

Methods: a prospective study conducted between 1^st of January till 1^st of June 2007 in Raparin hospital , three hundreds children of 1-24 months old admitted with respiratory distress & acute wheezing were recruited & 62 children with no respiratory distress were also studied as control cases. Chest x-ray, total & differential WBC counts were undertaken for all of them.

Results: of the 300 cases, 191 were due to bronchiolitis. thier age were between 1-6 months (47.23 %), male was the most common gender affected (67.67%).Fever with temperature above 37.7 Cᵒ indicate pneumonia (68.9%) more likely rather than other 2 diseases (asthma ,bronchiloitis). One hundred percent of cases of asthma had history of previous attack of wheeze & +ve family history of atopy.Among bronchopneumonia patients, 77% had opacity in chest x-ray (CXR) while 39.9% of bronchiolitis cases had normal CXR. In 84.8 % of cases with bronchiolitis WBC count were normal with only 4.2% had lymphocytosis, while 11.5% of bronchopneumonia patients had leukocytosis with 24.6% of these cases had neutrophilia.

Conclusion: It can be concluded from this study that bronchiolitis, bronchopneumonia & asthma can be differentiated up to reasonable extent on the basis of clinical features supported by simple available investigations..

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