A review of ICU admissions for asthma to the Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles was conducted for the period January 1969 through July 1977. The admission rate remained relatively constant during this period. Patients requiring ICU admission tended to be young, intractable severe asthmatics whose asthma started at a very young age. There were three patients who had no previous history of asthma. The incidence of pneumomitis/atelectasis was somewhat greater than has been reported for patients hospitalized for status asthmaticus. A significant number of children received neither intravenous corticosteroids, sympathomimetics nor oxygen therapy while hospitalized prior to transfer to the ICU. Those children receiving mechanical ventilation or intravenous isoproterenol tended to be somewhat younger and had a higher incidence of pneumonitis/atelectasis and more abnormal blood gas determina tions than their counterparts who were not similarly treated. Mechanical ventilation was administered to 15 patients and 19 patients received intra venous isoproterenol. Intravenous isoproterenol resulted in prompt improve ment in most patients; except for one patient who experienced cardiac arrhyth mia (reversed when the dosage was decreased), this medication was well-tolerated.
