<i>The Cochrane Library</i> and the Treatment of Bronchiolitis in Children: An Overview of Reviews
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Bronchiolitis describes a viral inflammation of the bronchioles in the lower respiratory tract that is typically caused by infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Bronchiolitis is characterized by high morbidity and affects approximately one in three infants. Children are currently treated with a variety of therapies that may be ineffective or even harmful; potential therapies include antibiotics, bronchodilators, chest physiotherapy, epinephrine, extrathoracic pressure, glucocorticoids, heliox, hypertonic saline, immunoglobulin, inhaled corticosteroids and oxygen therapy. Objectives This updated overview of reviews aims to synthesize evidence from the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) on the effectiveness and safety of 11 pharmacologic and non‐pharmacologic treatments to improve bronchiolitis symptoms in outpatient, inpatient and intensive care populations. Methods The CDSR was searched using the term ‘bronchiolitis’ restricted to the title, abstract or keywords for all systematic reviews examining pharmacologic or non‐pharmacologic interventions for the treatment of bronchiolitis in infants and children. Data were extracted, complied into tables, and synthesized using qualitative and quantitative methods. Main Results For outpatients with bronchiolitis (defined as the first episode of wheezing in children under two), nebulized epinephrine decreased hospitalization rate on day one by 33% (RR: 0.67; 95% CI: 0.50, 0.89; 4 trials; 920 participants). With the addition of glucocorticoids, there was a reduction of similar magnitude for hospitalization rate within seven days (RR: 0.65; 95% CI: 0.44, 0.95; 1 trial; 400 participants). For inpatients, nebulized epinephrine versus bronchodilator and 3% hypertonic saline versus 0.9% saline each decreased length of stay: epinephrine decreased length of stay by seven hours (MD: − 0.28; 95% CI: − 0.46, − 0.09; 4 trials; 261 participants), and 3% hypertonic saline decreased length of stay by 28 hours (MD: − 1.16; 95% CI: − 1.55, − 0.77; 4 trials; 282 participants). Outpatients treated with epinephrine or epinephrine and glucocorticoid combined both had significantly lower clinical scores at 60 minutes (SMD: − 0.45; 95% CI: − 0.66, − 0.23; 4 trials; 900 participants, and SMD: − 0.34; 95% CI: − 0.54, − 0.14; 1 trial; 399 participants). For inpatients, epinephrine versus bronchodilator led to a significantly lower clinical score at both 60 minutes (SMD: − 0.79; 95% CI: − 1.45, − 0.13; 4 trials; 248 participants; I2: 79%) and 120 minutes (SMD: − 0.52; 95% CI: − 0.86, − 0.18; 1 trial; 140 participants). Inpatients treated with chest physiotherapy or 3% hypertonic saline both had significantly lower clinical scores at 1–3 days (SMD: − 0.55; 95% CI: − 0.98, − 0.12; 1 trial; 87 participants, and SMD: − 0.84; 95% CI: − 1.39, − 0.30; 3 trials; 183 participants). Authors' Conclusions For outpatients with bronchiolitis, nebulized epinephrine can be effective in avoiding hospitalization. Systemic glucocorticoids such as dexamethasone cannot be recommended as a routine therapy given the current level of evidence and potential for adverse events. For inpatients, regular nebulized hypertonic saline (3%) driven using oxygen may reduce the length of hospital stay. Chest physiotherapy, nebulized epinephrine and systemic and inhaled glucocorticoids cannot be recommended for inpatients given the weak level of evidence. For the sickest of patients in the intensive care unit, intravenous immunoglobulin, helium‐oxygen mixtures (heliox) and extrathoracic pressure cannot be recommended due to lack of available evidence and/or methodological flaws of reviews. Copyright © 2011 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. The Cochrane Collaboration
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.034 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.010 | 0.008 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.015 | 0.020 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".