Growth of Asthmatic Children Before Long-Term Treatment with Inhaled Corticosteroids

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the growth of asthmatic children before any long-term inhaled corticosteroid treatment. We studied 436 asthmatic children (254 boys and 182 girls), age range 3.9-15.4 years, that had not been treated with long-term inhaled corticosteroids. In each child height and weight were measured, and the height standard deviation score (HSDS) and the weight for height ratio (%WFH) were calculated. We also estimated asthma severity and tested atopic status by skin testing. Children were grouped into three age groups: prepuberty (3.9-7.9 years), peripuberty (8-11.9 years), and puberty (12-15.5 years). HSDS was correlated to asthma severity and duration, atopic status, and other coexisting allergic diseases. Seven hundred ten healthy children (345 boys, 365 girls) ages 4.1-15.5 years were used as controls for height and weight. There was no statistically significant difference in HSDS and %WFH between patients and controls, except for HSDS of pubertal female patients that was significantly less than that of controls, x: 0.06 (0.80) vs. x: 0.40 (0.90), respectively, p < 0.02. There was also no significant correlation between HSDS or %WFH and severity or duration of the disease, allergy status and other coexisting allergic diseases. However, there was significant difference in menarcheal age between asthmatic girls x: 12.49 (0.12) and controls x: 12.00 (0.10), p < 0.001. In conclusion, our data show that the growth of asthmatic children before any long-term treatment with inhaled corticosteroids is not different from the control population, except for the asthmatic girls of pubertal age who are shorter than control girls probably because of delay in pubertal maturation.

Influence of allergic disorders on physical development

“…Most of the studies do not indicate the statistical occurrence of significant differences in the level of development between children with or without allergies [16,17]. A slightly higher body mass, however, was observed in the former, which probably is a consequence of taking medicaments [18].…”

Asthma and Height in Twins: A Cohort and Within-Pair Analyses Study

“…An inconclusive pattern in the collective results may be attributable to different methods, such as categorization by age (Moudiou et al, 2003;Neville et al, 1996) or validated scales Hauspie et al, 1977), of establishing pubertal staging. In contrast to newer ways of determining pubertal staging (Gasser et al, 2013), the validated Peterson index, which we applied to our data on boys, does not include information on height to establish pubertal staging (Petersen et al, 1988).…”

“…In other words, our findings provide modest evidence that differences in height among boys by asthma status may be partly attributable to genes or shared familial environment, rather than asthma. This is interesting, as there has been a concern about the impact of asthma on height for many years (El-Sayed et al, 2010;Hauspie et al, 1976;1977;1979;Moudiou et al, 2003;The Childhood Asthma Management Program Research Group, 2000;Umlawska et al, 2013). However, caution is warranted when interpreting the collective results in relation to familial confounding as the confidence intervals from the within-pair analyses are wide enough to cover the estimates from the cohort analysis.…”

“…An association between asthma and height has also been proposed, but is collectively inconclusive (Hauspie et al, 1977;Strunk et al, 2009;The Childhood Asthma Management Program Research Group, 2000). Asthma appears to be associated with shorter height (El-Sayed et al, 2010;Hauspie et al, 1976;1979;Moudiou et al, 2003;Umlawska et al, 2013) and delayed growth (Hauspie et al, 1977) during adolescence, although the impact of childhood asthma on final adult height remains less understood (Kelly et al, 2012;Norjavaara et al, 2001). To date, this work has been done exclusively in singletons.…”

Body mass index in asthmatic children before and after one year inhaled glucocorticosteroids therapy BMI

“…Portugalski autori ukazuju da je prevalencija prekomerno uhranjene i gojazne dece uzrasta 5-16 godina bila povećana u grupi dece sa atopijskim bolestima (44,6%), a povezanost gojaznosti i astme bila je veća u odnosu na rinitis i ekcem [17]. Grčki autori u svojoj studiji na 436 astmatične dece i 710 zdrave dece, takođe ukazuju da nema statistički značajne razlike u telesnoj visini i BMI dece, kao i da kod astmatične dece nema razlike u telesnoj visini i BMI u odnosu na težinu i trajanje njihove bolesti, kao i u odnosu na alergijski status i pridružene druge alergijske bolesti [18]. McCowen sa saradnicima takođe ukazuje da većina dece sa astmom ima normalnu telesnu masu i visinu [4].…”