Childhood allergic rhinitis predicts asthma incidence and persistence to middle age: A longitudinal study
Section snippets
Study population and data collection
The TAS began in 1968 when a population birth cohort (n = 8583), then aged 7 years and attending school in Tasmania, was surveyed. The cohort comprised 98.9% of children born in Tasmania in 1961. A questionnaire completed by the parents detailed the child's history of asthma, hay fever, eczema, allergy, and urticaria. At a medical examination in 1968, FEV1, forced vital capacity, and forced expiratory flow from 25% to 75% of the forced vital capacity were measured with a wedge-bellows
Prevalence of allergic disorders
In the cohort at the age of 7 years (n = 8583), the prevalence of “asthma ever” was 16.3% (n = 1399). A response to the allergic rhinitis question was obtained for 96.4% (n = 8275). Of these, 12.8% (95% CI, 12.1% to 13.5%; n = 1061) had allergic rhinitis, which was significantly more common in boys (13.9% vs 11.7%, χ21 = 8.7, P = .003). Of this 1061, infantile or flexural eczema was reported by the parents in 27.1% (95% CI, 24.5% to 29.8%; n = 228), food or medicine allergy in 15.7% (95% CI,
Discussion
Childhood allergic rhinitis and childhood asthma were strongly associated, independent of other childhood allergic disorders, impaired lung function at the age of 7 years, and socioeconomic status. Furthermore, childhood allergic rhinitis was associated with a 7-fold increased risk of incident asthma in preadolescence, a 4-fold increased risk in adolescence, and a 2-fold increased risk in adult life, independent of those same covariates. Incident asthma risk in adult life was also independent
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The Tasmanian Asthma Study is supported by grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the Asthma Foundations of Victoria and Tasmania, the Clifford Craig Medical Research Trust, and the Royal Hobart Hospital Research Foundation. John Burgess is supported by a Research Scholarship from the University of Melbourne. Graham Byrnes, Melanie Matheson, John Hopper, and Shyamali Dharmage are supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: M. J. Abramson has consulting arrangements with the Australian Asthma Study, which was sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline; received an honorarium from Boehringer Ingelheim for a presentation at Airways 2006; and received travel support from AstraZeneca. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.