Abstract
Introduction: Respiratory symptoms including wheezing are common in preterm-born children but the natural history of wheezing and the influence of early life factors on wheezing phenotypes are unclear.
Aims: We identified wheezing phenotypes in preterm-born children and investigated associations with early life factors compared with term-born children.
Methods: Machine-learning using reports of wheezing from the Millennium Cohort Study (n=13,356) at 3, 5, 7 and 11 years was used to derive wheezing phenotypes. Logistic regression was used to test associations with early life factors comparing preterm with term-born children.
Results: Four wheezing phenotypes were identified: no/infrequent, early, persistent and late, from 1,049 preterm-born children and 12,307 term-born who had recent-wheeze data for three- or four-time points. Recent-wheeze was greater at all time-points in preterm-born than term-born group although not significantly so at 11 years. Preterm-born children were more likely to have early and persistent wheeze. Although similar early life factors were associated with wheeze phenotypes in both preterm and term groups, including antenatal maternal smoking, atopy, male gender, and breast feeding (which was protective), the effects were generally stronger for preterms.
Conclusions: Preterm-born children have similar wheeze phenotypes to term-born children but are more likely than term-born children to have early and persistent wheeze. Wheezing was associated with similar early life factors in both term and preterm children but with greater effect sizes in the latter.
Footnotes
Cite this article as: European Respiratory Journal 2018 52: Suppl. 62, OA3306.
This is an ERS International Congress abstract. No full-text version is available. Further material to accompany this abstract may be available at www.ers-education.org (ERS member access only).
- Copyright ©the authors 2018