MedWire News: Wheezing in early life is associated with an increased risk for asthma in adulthood, even among people with an absence of symptoms in childhood and adolescence, study results show.
“Wheezing in early childhood is a heterogeneous condition, the long-term prognosis varying from total recovery to chronic asthma,” explain lead researcher Marja Ruotsalainen (Kuopio University Hospital, Finland) and team.
However, they add: “Although short-term outcome has been actively studied, there is lack of data on long-term outcome until adulthood.”
To address this, the researchers studied 59 adults, aged 26.3–28.6 years, who had been hospitalized for bronchiolitis during the first 2 years of life and followed-up through childhood.
These patients were compared with 72 selected controls matched for birth month, gender, and geographic area who were also followed-up during childhood and who did not have a history of wheezing in early life, and 105 non-selected population based controls matched for age and gender.
All the participants completed questionnaires on respiratory symptoms, asthma diagnosis, use of respiratory medications, smoking habits, and other variables.
Analysis revealed that 20% of the participants who had been hospitalized for bronchiolitis had current doctor-diagnosed asthma, compared with just 5.1% of selected and 4.8% of non-selected controls.
After adjustment, the researchers found that participants who had suffered from bronchiolitis were 2.1- and 5.2-times more likely to have current doctor-diagnosed asthma than selected and unselected controls, respectively, even if they had not experienced respiratory symptoms during childhood.
The presence of allergic rhinitis and current smoking were also significantly associated with asthma, but overweight and obesity were not.
Ruotsalainen and team conclude in the journal Allergy: “This prospective, controlled, long-term follow-up study showed that an increased asthma risk in early-life wheezers continues, even after symptom-free years at school age, at least until 27 years of age.”
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