A Study of the Natural History of Bronchial Asthma in Children

Abstract

cence has been the subject of much speculation and clinical study.1-5 This concern takes on special importance if one recalls that asthma and related respiratory allergic syndromes make up more than a quarter of all chronic diseases among American children.6This prospective study was designed in 1953 to determine the frequency of spontaneous remission of bronchial asthma in patients in the pediatric allergic clinic of the Strong Memorial Hospital. MethodsAs part of a controlled study of the effectiveness of hyposensitization therapy in perennial bronchial asthma in children, the half of the patients who received only placebo injections provided a group upon whom the natural history of the disease could be evaluated. There were 104 such children. Although not representing a random sample of all children in the community with asthma, this study does have the virtue of being prospective.As each child entered the study, his history, physical examination findings, and allergy skin test results were recorded. Where indicated other procedures such as chest x-rays, sweat

Long‐lasting effect of sublingual immunotherapy in children with asthma due to house dust mite: a 10‐year prospective study

“…To do that, over a 10‐year period, we based our observations mainly on clinical evaluation, which was the only parameter applicable to all children at baseline. In a certain sense, our results repeat those obtained by Johnstone [6] with subcutaneous IT, but in our case the patients were carefully selected, immunotherapy was performed only for one allergen (dust mites) and a standardized extract was used. Moreover, the present data come from a ‘real’ everyday situation; thus, no bias due to the experimental conditions should be expected.…”

Definition of respiratory symptoms and disease in early childhood in large prospective birth cohort studies that predict the development of asthma

“…The result of this study can also be explained by recall bias. However, this finding is in agreement with the conclusions of three other studies in symptomatic children (8,22,25). We are not aware of any population‐based prospective birth cohort study that has investigated the prognostic value of the frequency of wheezing attacks on the persistence of symptoms.…”

Evidence for benefits of early intervention with non-steroidal drugs in asthma

“…Because the best results in this study were obtained in the moderate and the severe asthma groups, and the natural history of the disease is known to be worse in the more severe patients, [1][2][3][4][5] it was concluded that the antiinflammatory drugs at least partially reversed the natural course of the disease. Thus, both sodium cromoglycate and inhaled corticosteroids are true disease-modifiers.…”