Abstract
Background Asthma is associated with impaired lung function; however, it is uncertain if a lower childhood lung function is associated with asthma onset and persistence during adolescence.
Aims To investigate the association between childhood lung function and onset and persistence of asthma during adolescence.
Methods In the population-based BAMSE (Sweden), PIAMA (Netherlands) and MAAS (UK) birth cohorts, we analyzed the association of FEV1, FVC, FEV1%FVC and FEF75 at age 8 years with asthma onset and persistence in adolescence (age 12–16) using cohort-specific logistic regression analysis followed by meta-analysis.
Results In the BAMSE, PIAMA and MAAS cohorts, asthma incidence in adolescence was 6.1% (112/1824), 3.4% (36/1050) and 5.0% (39/779), respectively. Persistent asthma from childhood to adolescence was observed in 8.2%, 6.4% and 7.7% of all subjects within the respective cohorts. A higher FEV1% and FEV1%FVC predicted at age 8 was associated with a lower odds for adolescent-onset asthma: OR 95% CI, 0.98 (0.97–1.00) and 0.97 (0.94–0.99). These associations remained significant also when restricting the analyses to subjects with no wheezing or asthma treatment in childhood. A higher FEV1%FVC at age 8 was associated with a lower odds for asthma persistence in adolescence (0.96 (0.93–0.99)). Sex by lung function interaction analysis was not significant.
Conclusions A higher lung function at school-age was associated with a lower risk of adolescent-onset asthma, predominantly in males. This indicates that a lower lung function in childhood may precede and or potentially contribute to asthma incidence and persistence.
Footnotes
This manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in the ERJ Open Research. It is published here in its accepted form prior to copyediting and typesetting by our production team. After these production processes are complete and the authors have approved the resulting proofs, the article will move to the latest issue of the ERJOR online. Please open or download the PDF to view this article.
Conflict of interest
HJLK, MMK, UG, SE, AB, JMAB, JH and JMV have no conflicts of interest to report. GHK reports grant support from Netherlands Lung Foundation, TEVA the Netherlands, GSK, Vertex, Ubbo Emmius Foundation, European Union (H2020) and Zon-MW outside the submitted work. GHK reports lecture and/or advisory fees from GSK, Astra Zeneca, Sanofi, Boehringer-Ingelheim, and Pure-IMS (money to institution). EM reports lecture and/or advisory board fees from ALK, Airsonett, AstraZeneca, Chiesi, Novartis and Sanofi outside the submitted work. GW reports lecture fees from Sanofi outside the submitted work. IK reports lecture feed from AstraZeneca outside the submitted work. AC reports personal fees from Novartis, personal fees from Sanofi, personal fees from Stallergenes Greer, personal fees from AstraZeneca, personal fees from GSK, personal fees from La Roche-Posay, outside the submitted work. AS reports grants from the Medical Research Council JP Moulton Charitable Foundation Asthma UK, grant to institution. MC reports lecture fees from Sanofi, Novartis and GSK.
This is a PDF-only article. Please click on the PDF link above to read it.
- Copyright ©The authors 2024
This version is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0. For commercial reproduction rights and permissions contact permissions{at}ersnet.org
