Hypertonic saline versus normal saline nebulization in hospitalized children with acute bronchiolitis.

Abstract

Objectives: To compare mean length of hospital stay (LOHS) after treatment with nebulized hypertonic saline (HS) versus normal saline (NS) in hospitalized children with acute bronchiolitis (AB). Study Design: Randomized Control Trial. Setting: Department of Pediatric Medicine, The Children’s Hospital and Institute of the Child Health, Multan. Period: July 2018 to January 2019. Material & Methods: A total of 206 hospitalized children having AB were enrolled. Group A (n=103) was nebulized with 2 ml of 3 % HS while group B (n=103) was nebulized with 2 ml of 0.9% saline solution. Clinical severity score was calculated daily to monitor progress of patients. Patients were discharged from hospital with clinical severity score of 4 or less and length of hospital stay was noted. Results: Overall, mean age was 5.83±4.48 months. Among 206 patients 139 (67.5%) were males and 67 (32.5%) females. Mean duration of disease was noted to be 3.57+2.2 days. In Group-A, mean LOHS was 36.29+18.4 hours in comparison to 39.15+16.1 hours in Group B (p-value = 0.2365). Conclusion: Nebulized HS 3% and NS 0.9% were not found to have any significant advantage over each other in terms of LOHS among hospitalized children having acute bronchiolitis.