Abstract
In order to clarify the current status of children who need hospitalized treatment for asthma, we gathered and analyzed the information on pediatric patients aged 15 or under who received hospitalized treatment due to acute exacerbation during 2 months, OCT-2011 and NOV-2011, obtained from 49 hospitals in the Kinki region which provided cooperation for this survey.
The subjects were 397 patients, and 66.9% were children aged 5 or under (median age: 4 years). Among them, 17.7% were considered to have been hospitalized for initial attacks. Fever over 37.5°C was noted in 48.1% of the patients, and younger patients had fever more frequently. The duration of hospitalization was 6.0±3.0 days, and fever tended to prolong the duration. Among all patients, 27.0% had a history of hospitalization in the past year, and a few patients experienced recurrent hospitalization. Only 38.8% of the patients were receiving treatment at the hospitals, and 49.7% received no long-term controller therapy. These results suggest that appropriate intervention based on early diagnosis of asthma and accurate understanding of disease control condition, as well as deeper regional medical cooperation would be required for further improvement of the management condition of childhood asthma.
