Childhood Asthma and Steroid Therapy as Influences on Growth

Abstract

Measurements of body height and weight are among the relatively simple anthropometric procedures. Yet, the estimation, evaluation, and prediction of growth rates constitute a problem of great complexity^1-3 which becomes even more difficult in the case of a chronic or recurrent illness.^4-7 In a condition such as perennial and intractable asthma, a multiplicity of factors of varying significance may affect growth; nutritional and pharmacologic influences are superimposed on the illness ^8-11 in modifying hereditary somatic characteristics. In recent years, the role of prolonged therapy with anti-inflammatory steroids in suppressing growth has attracted considerable interest,^12-15 with special emphasis on the particular effects of the various cortisone analogues and the critical dose level of each. The present study was undertaken in order to (1) evaluate the growth status of 2 groups of children: (a) those with intractable asthma admitted to a residential treatment center, and (b) those seen for