Risk factors for intensive care in children with acute asthma.

Objective: A retrospective case-control study at Monash Medical Centre (MMC), a tertiary referral hospital in Melbourne, Australia, was conducted to identify risk factors associated with very severe asthma in paediatric patients.

Methodology: Asthmatics admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU; n=52) were identified and considered to represent cases of very severe/near fatal asthma (NFA group). This group was compared to asthmatics who had been admitted on one occasion only to the emergency department at MMC (non-NFA controls, n=53).