According to a study that was co-authored by Dr. Joan Bregstein of the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia University Medical Center, steroid treatment is not effective and does not prevent hospitalization or improve bronchiolitis’ respiratory symptoms for infants.

This multicenter study was published in an issue of New England Journal of Medicine and conducted by the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN).

Bronchiolitis is the one of the most common cause of infant hospitalization and its symptoms include wheezing, runny nose, fever, and coughing.

From News-Medical.Net:

The study compared hospitalization rates for 600 children between the ages of 2 months and 12 months who visited emergency rooms with moderate-to-severe bronchiolitis. Patients were treated with either a dose of dexamethasone (a glucocorticoid form of steroid medication) or a placebo and evaluated after one hour, and again at four hours. The hospital admission rate for both groups was identical at nearly 40 percent. Both groups improved during treatment, but the placebo group did as well as the group treated with active medication. The three-year study was conducted in the emergency departments at 20 hospitals across the United States.

Most children recover from the illness in eight to 15 days. The majority of children hospitalized for bronchiolitis are under 6 months old. Although many children with bronchiolitis have mild infections, and most don’t need hospitalization, children born prematurely or who suffer from heart and lung disease are most at risk for complications.

Dr. Bregstein, site principal investigator and emergency medicine pediatrician at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of NewYork-Presbyterian and assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said that this study show that treating bronchiolitis with steroids doesn’t work.