Abstract
Introduction: The diagnosis of acute viral bronchiolitis (AVB) is
primarily based on the findings in pulmonary auscultation. There is no
consensus on which auscultatory finding is the most frequent in AVB.
This study aims to describe the pulmonary auscultation in a series of
patients with AVB and verify its association with age, sex, viral agent,
and duration of oxygen therapy. Method: Pulmonary auscultation was
recorded in patients hospitalized for AVB between October 2018 and
October 2019 using an electronic stethoscope and then parallelly
analyzed by two examiners. The effect of other factors such as sex, age,
duration of oxygen therapy and etiological agent was analyzed for any
possible associations. Results: Of 114 patients, 67 (58.8%) produced
wheeze, 43 (37.7%) produced crackles, and 4 (3.5%) had normal
auscultation. Wheezing was predominant in male patients while crackling
in female patients (67.1% and 52.3%, respectively; p = 0.039). Age had
no significant influence on the auscultation pattern (p = 0.054),
etiological agent (p = 0.053) and the duration of oxygen therapy (p =
0.877). The median age was higher in patients with parainfluenza
compared to those with RSV (6.5 and 4.4 months, respectively; p =
0.044). The duration of oxygen therapy was higher in patients with RSV
compared to those with no identified virus (median 5.2 and 2.68 days,
respectively; p = 0.018). Conclusions: Wheezing was recorded as the
predominant auscultation finding among hospitalized patients with AVB.
The type of virus associated with AVB had no influence on the changes in
pulmonary auscultation.