Hot Off the Press: Which Febrile Children With Sickle Cell Disease Need a Chest X-Ray?

Abstract

This retrospective chart review examined the rate of acute chest syndrome (ACS) in febrile children (aged 3 months to 21 years) with sickle cell disease and used recursive partitioning to determine which clinical factors were predictive of a diagnosis of ACS. Over the course of 2 years, 697 children made 1,837 visits to one of two pediatric emergency departments. ACS was diagnosed in 185 (10%) of the visits.