A study in this week’s NEJM adds to a growing body of evidence linking childhood asthma to the development of COPD in early adulthood.
The CAMP study of 684 children with persistent asthma discovered that by early adulthood three-quarters of the participants displayed an early decline in lung function and/or reduced lung growth.
At the end of the study 11 percent met the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease spirometric criteria for lung-function impairment that was consistent with COPD.
These participants were more likely to have a reduced pattern of growth than a normal pattern (18% vs. 3%, P<0.001), the study showed.
Impaired lung function at enrolment and male gender were the most significant predictors of abnormal longitudinal patterns of lung-function growth and decline.
Senior author Robert C Strunk* a professor of paediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine described the findings as ‘astonishing’.