How Often is Chest Radiography Ordered for Patients with Pediatric Asthma?

Objective: Although many children with asthma can be diagnosed clinically, chest radiographs are routinely requested in asthma attacks. The aim of this study is to determine how often chest radiographs are requested and the factors affecting these requests in pediatric patients with asthma.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed by studying the electronic radiographic records of pediatric patients with asthma who were referred to our Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Department over a six-month period. A questionnaire was designed to obtain further information from the parents of the patients.
Results: The records of 100 children with bronchial asthma, aged 21 to 192 months, were evaluated. The average number of chest radiographs was 3.9±3.8 (between 1-30). Fifty-one percent of the children underwent three or more chest radiographs. There was a positive correlation between the number of chest X-rays before asthma diagnosis and the frequency of antibiotic usage (r=0.222, p=0.026). An inverse correlation was found between the number of chest radiographs and the patients’ ages and the age at which asthma was diagnosed (r=−0.335, p=0.001; r=−0.211, p=0.035, respectively). In contrast, there was a positive correlation between the number of chest X-rays and the number of hospital admissions (r=0.205, p=0.040). A positive correlation between the frequency of antibiotic usage and the annual number of hospital admissions was determined (r=0.428, p=0.000). Furthermore, a positive correlation between the frequency of antibiotic usage and the frequency of asthma attacks was observed (r=0.292, p=0.003).
Conclusion: The results of our study show that the use of chest radiographs is high in cases of childhood asthma, especially in younger children.