Asthma trends Causes of wheeze and asthma may differ

BMJ 1994;309:603 (3 September)

Letters

Asthma trends Causes of wheeze and asthma may differ

EDITOR, - Two papers report the outcome of childhood asthmain Tasmania¹ and Melbourne² in subjects now in their 30s. Wereported a 25 year follow up of schoolchildren in Aberdeen^3,4and think that our findings influence the interpretation ofthese Australian papers.

In the 1964 random community survey that provided the baselinefor our study, subjects were classified as having asthma, "wheezein the presence of respiratory infection" (wheezy bronchitis),or no respiratory symptoms (comparison subjects).⁵ Review after25 years of subjects from each group showed that 61% of thosewho had had asthma in childhood continued to wheeze in adultlife, compared with 30% of those who had had wheezy bronchitis;11% of the comparison subjects had developed wheeze since theoriginal study.

Of the subjects who had not had symptoms in childhood who werereviewed by Mark A Jenkins and colleagues, 10.6% had developedsymptoms by the . . . [Full text of this article]

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Factors in childhood as predictors of asthma in adult life: Mark A Jenkins, John L Hopper, Glenn Bowes, John B Carlin, Louisa B Flander, and Graham G Giles
BMJ 1994 309: 90-93. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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