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Thursday, October 09, 2003The study followed 613 children who were part of a long-running study of the physical and mental health of all children born in the New Zealand town of Dunedin in one year, starting in 1972. Some participants never had asthma, but nearly three-quarters experienced wheezing asthma's hallmark symptom at some point. ....It found that the risk of an asthma relapse by age 26 rose steadily the earlier the wheezing began. Those whose asthma began 10 years earlier than others were 69 percent more likely to have a relapse by 26. The study is unusual as studies go. Its subjects weren’t culled from the teaching clinic of a university hospital, but from a New Zealand town of 100,000. It followed all children born in that town from 1972 to 1973 for 26 years: By the age of 26 years, 51.4 percent of 613 study members with complete respiratory data had reported wheezing at more than one assessment. Eighty-nine study members (14.5 percent) had wheezing that persisted from childhood to 26 years of age, whereas 168 (27.4 percent) had remission, but 76 (12.4 percent) subsequently relapsed by the age of 26. Sensitization to house dust mites predicted the persistence of wheezing (odds ratio, 2.41; P=0.001) and relapse (odds ratio, 2.18; P=0.01), as did airway hyperresponsiveness (odds ratio for persistence, 3.00; P<0.001; odds ratio for relapse, 3.03; P<0.001). Female sex predicted the persistence of wheezing (odds ratio, 1.71; P=0.03), as did smoking at the age of 21 years (odds ratio, 1.84; P=0.01). The earlier the age at onset, the greater the risk of relapse (odds ratio, 0.89 per year of increase in the age at onset; P<0.001). Pulmonary function was consistently lower in those with persistent wheezing than in those without persistent wheezing. I’m not sure this adds much to our ability to predict who will have long-term asthma. Most of it we already know: allergies, persistent asthma symptoms, and smoking are all likely to indicate chronic asthma problems. But maybe it will make us less likely to label someone as asthmatic after one episode of wheezing caused by a respiratory infection. posted by Sydney on 10/09/2003 09:02:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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