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JACI Highlights - May 2009Infant bronchiolitis severity correlates with childhood asthma risk and severityViral bronchiolitis affects 20% of infants, leading to the hospitalization of 3% of healthy infants in the United States yearly. Infants hospitalized with bronchiolitis have a high prevalence of early childhood asthma. However, it is not known whether the severity of the infant bronchiolitis episode is associated with the risk of developing early childhood asthma or with asthma morbidity in a severity-dependent manner. In a population-based retrospective cohort study of 90,341 term, otherwise healthy infants, Carroll et al. found that infant bronchiolitis severity was positively correlated with the odds of early childhood asthma in a severity-dependent manner. Infants with the most severe bronchiolitis during infancy, as determined by hospitalization, had increased early childhood asthma morbidity compared with children who did not have a medical visit for bronchiolitis during infancy. These findings, published in the May 2009 issue of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, could reflect either a relationship between host risk of both infant infection and asthma and/or the extent of infant lung injury, impairment in lung development, or alteration in immune response following infection that predisposes to increased risk and severity of childhood asthma. Further work is needed to determine whether preventing infant infection or the severity of infection prevents subsequent development and severity of childhood asthma. “The Severity-Dependent Relationship of Infant Bronchiolitis on the Risk and Morbidity of Early Childhood Asthma” by Carroll et al. (JACI May 2009 Volume 123 No. 5) |
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