Live Coverage: To Test or Not to Test?
In this afternoon's Best Practices for Laboratory Diagnosis of Invasive Infectious Diseases Symposium, Dr. Mario Marcon, PhD, director, Microbiology, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, discussed bronchitis and pneumonia.
Dr. Marcon focused mostly on bronchiolitis, an obstructive airway disease of the terminal bronchioles, characterized by edema of submucosal bronchiole layers and respiratory epithelial cell necrosis. Bronchiolitis is seen mostly in young children, younger than 2 years of age, and is the leading cause of hospitalization in infants.
Bronchiolitis is one of those conditions where guidelines do not necessarily recommend testing. When surveyed, clinicians indicated testing was sometimes performed to reassure a parent, rather than to determine hospitalization. There are times were testing is indicated, such as if the patient has atypical presentation, or to collect epidemiological data, Dr. Marcon noted.
Nationwide has developed an algorithm whereby patients to be discharged are discharged as planned, and patients to be admitted undergo a seven-virus direct specimen FA test.