© 2002 Thorax
EDITORIAL
Asthma
Asthma in the transition from childhood to adulthood
Department of Child Health, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB9 2ZG, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr G Russell;
libra@ifb.co.uk
Both the prognosis of childhood asthma and the incidence of asthma in early adulthood are strongly influenced by bronchial hyperreactivity, a measurement few of us make routinely.
Keywords: asthma; risk factors; atopy; wheeze; adolescence
One of the most neglected aspects of the epidemiology of asthma is the period of transition from childhood to adulthood, perhaps because paediatricians feel insecure about trespassing on adult territory and adult physicians do not have access to paediatric cohorts. Adolescence is, in fact, an important period for asthmatic patients, not only because the condition itself may be difficult to manage, but because this is a time when asthma sometimes remits1–3 and when the male preponderance of childhood gradually gives way to the female preponderance of adulthood.4,5
Numerous cross sectional studies have spanned this period. Secondary schools provide a captive population of adolescents and have been widely used in the ISAAC studies,6 and college students7,8 and army recruits9,10 provide ready sources of young adults for study. However, although such cross sectional studies demonstrate very clearly that adolescence is a time when significant changes occur in the asthmatic population, they
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