Asthmatic Children Are More Likely to Develop COPD as Adults
Research presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference in New Orleans suggests that children who have asthma are more than 30 times more likely to develop adult COPD than other groups.
As part of the Melbourne Asthma Study presented in “Pediatric Origins of Adult Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Childhood Asthma,” subjects were recruited from a 1957 birth cohort at 7 years and then reviewed regularly to 50 years. At recruitment, the subjects were grouped as: Controls (with no history of wheeze until age 7), intermittent asthma (who had viral-induced wheezing), persistent asthma (whose wheeze was in the absence of a respiratory tract infection), and severe persistent asthma. COPD at age 50 years was defined according to the GOLD criteria. Participants completed a questionnaire and measures of lung function.
A total of 346 of the surviving cohort participated in the current study, of which 197 completed both questionnaires and lung function testing. COPD was identified in 28 subjects and was more common in men. When asthma groups were compared with the control group, the rate for developing COPD was 37.1 for those with severe persistent asthma, 9.1 for persistent asthma and 3.0 for intermittent asthma.
Because of these results, researchers suggest that children with severe persistent asthma are at increased risk of developing COPD. They note that the fixed abnormalities in lung function in adult life are clearly established in childhood and progress to irreversible airway obstruction in adulthood. They also note that early treatment to prevent airway remodeling may reduce the incidence of this long-term complication of childhood asthma.