Chest
Original Research: AIRWAY DISEASE IN INFANTSSensitivity of Bronchial Responsiveness Measurements in Young Infants
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
The study included infants from the Copenhagen Studies on Asthma in Childhood (COPSAC) birth cohort study.9 COPSAC includes 411 infants of mothers with doctor-diagnosed asthma, excluding infants with gestational age < 36 weeks, congenital abnormality, systemic illness, or a history of mechanical ventilation or lower airway infection. Parents gave written informed consent. The study was approved by the local ethics committee ([KF] 01–289/96, [KF] 01–227/97), and the Danish Data Protection Agency
Results
Lung function tests were completed by 402 infants (205 girls) of the cohort of 411; 392 were white. Nine infants from the COPSAC cohort were not included due to respiratory infection or refusal by parents. Demographic data are described in Table 1. Mean Pinf was 1.8 kPa (SD, 0.2), and mean Ptrans was 2.2 kPa (SD, 0.3). Regression coefficients for FEV0.5 on Pinf and Ptrans were 31.1 and − 9.8, respectively.
The sensitivity of lung function measurements was compared in the 252 infants in whom Pinf
Discussion
We compared indexes of RVRTC, tidal breathing, Ptco2, and auscultation during methacholine challenge testing in young infants with median age of 6 weeks. Ptco2 was the most sensitive parameter detecting increasing airway obstruction, followed by FEV0.5, both being clearly superior to the all other measurements. Additional indexes of forced flow, tidal breathing indexes, and auscultation changed in parallel but were notably less sensitive. All infants included had a family history of asthma;
Acknowledgment
We thank the parents of the infants studied for their participation. Technician Lena Vind is gratefully appreciated for her help collecting data collection.
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This article has a Web-only data supplement.
Financial support was provided by Statens Sundhedsvidenskabelige Forskningsråd, Direktør Jakob Madsen & Hustru Olga Madsens Fond, Dagmar Marshalls Fond, Dronning Louises Børnehospitals Forskningsfond.
Reproduction of this article is prohibited without written permission from the American College of Chest Physicians (www.chestjournal.org/misc/reprints.shtml).