Author(s): Saleh Zaid Al-Muhsen
RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) is the most common cause of bronchiolitis among newborns worldwide. Although many risk factors for RSVinfections in newborns have been proposed, there is still a need to further investigate the profile of RSV positive children who required ICU admission to be able to better identify children at risk. Moreover, increasing evidences suggest that genetic variations of the host response can influence the outcome of some infectious diseases such as RSV-induced bronchiolitis. In this study, we have investi-gated the risk factors associated with RSVinfection in Saudi children admitted to the pedi-atric intensive care unit (PICU) of a tertiary university hospital. We have noticed that prematurity is associated with increased severity of RSV infection. Thirty seven percent of the infants admitted in the PICU were found to be of premature birth. Moreover, children with pulmonary pathology and cardio-vascular abnormalities were also more prone to RSV in-fection. The clinical characteristics of these patients and the over-all outcome of the PICU admission were discussed. The seasonality of RSV admissions in the PICU at a teaching tertiary care hospital was also reported herein.