Asthma and early childhood infectious disease

doi:10.1136/bmj.323.7305.164

BMJ 2001;323:164 ( 21 July )

Letters

Asthma and early childhood infectious disease

Infection is trigger rather than cause

Critical time for protective effect of large family on asthma may not be during first year of life

Infection is trigger rather than cause

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EDITOR $---$ The study by Illi et al is suggestive of a protective role of early upper respiratory tract infections against thedevelopment of asthma later in life.¹ Concerning lower respiratorytract infections, a positive association with the developmentof asthma has been proposed. But as these infections were foundto be significantly higher in children with a family history ofatopy, Illi et al conclude that they rather represent manifestationsof children already predisposed toasthma.

We analysed the preliminary results of a prospective study of infants with bronchiolitis during the first year of life. Weenrolled all the 238 infants admitted to two major paediatricdepartments in Crete from January 1999 to April 2000. The infantswere classified as positive or negative for respiratory syncytialvirus from the results of a rapid test for respiratory syncytialvirus antigen in nasopharyngeal secretions (Abbott Test Pack RSVrapid diagnostic kit). The outcome was . . . [Full text of this article]

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Early childhood infectious diseases and the development of asthma up to school age: a birth cohort study: Sabina Illi, Erika von Mutius, Susanne Lau, Renate Bergmann, Bodo Niggemann, Christine Sommerfeld, Ulrich Wahn, and the MAS Group
BMJ 2001 322: 390-395. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]