Clinical Decision Rules to Pediatric Pneumonia

摘要

There are no widely accepted guidelines for the use of chest radiography (CXR) in children with symptoms of acute lower respiratory tract infection (LRI) to predict which of these children will have radiographic pneumonia. Emergency physicians need highly sensitive guidelines for the use of CXRs in such children in order to appropriately treat all patients with clinically significant radiographic pneumonia and yet avoid unnecessary radiation exposure and CXR costs in patients without pneumonia. The primary objective of this study is to identify a set of clinical characteristics that will predict radiographic pneumonia in patients 2 months to 59 months of age with respiratory symptoms suggestive of acute LRI.