Chest Deformity, Residual Airways Obstruction and Hyperinflation, and Growth in Children with Asthma: I: Prevalence Findings from an Epidemiological Study

Abstract

A random sample of 276 10-year-old asthmatic children, with varying grades of asthma, were examined at a time when they did not have asthma and compared with a control group of normal children. Of the asthmatic children, 3% showed unequivocal evidence of chest deformity, 7% had airways obstruction by spirometry, and 12% rhonchi on auscultation in an interval phase. Only 3% of asthmatic children had two or three of these abnormal findings, and only 1% all three. Most of the children who showed one or more of the three findings were in the group of asthmatic children who had a long history with more than 20 attacks and regular recurrence of episodes at 10 years of age. There was no significant growth impairment in this group of children with a prolonged history of asthma. However, in the small subset of 3% of asthmatic children who had, in addition to a prolonged history, two or three of the above abnormal findings (11 children), a trend towards some reduction of weight was shown.