Bronchoscopic Findings in Children With Chronic Wet Cough Full Text
Pediatrics, 02/17/2012

Zgherea D et al. – Children who present with chronic wet cough are often found to have evidence of purulent bronchitis on bronchoscopy. This finding is often indicative of a bacterial lower airway infection in these children.

• The authors performed a retrospective review of charts of children who presented with chronic wet cough, unresponsive to therapy, before referral to the pediatric pulmonary clinic.

• A total of 197 charts and bronchoscopy reports were analyzed. Of 109 children who were 0 to 3 years of age, 33 (30.3%) had laryngomalacia and/or tracheomalacia.
• The bronchoscopy showed purulent bronchitis in 56% (110) cases and nonpurulent bronchitis in 44% (87).
• The bronchoalveolar lavage bacterial cultures were positive in 46% (91) of the children and showed nontypable Haemophilus influenzae (49%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (20%), Moraxella catarrhalis (17%), Staphylococcus aureus (12%), and Klebsiella pneumoniae in 1 patient.
• The x2 analysis demonstrated that positive bacterial cultures occurred more frequently in children with purulent bronchitis (74, 69.8%) than in children with nonpurulent bronchitis (19, 19.8%) (P < .001).