Whispers of change in childhood asthma: findings in the French ELFE cohort

Early life asthma phenotyping remains an unmet need in pediatric asthma; necessary to overcome the underdiagnoses and increased morbidity in childhood.  Phenotyping of asthma in France has been exclusively focused on severe pediatric asthma, and till date phenotypes of childhood asthma in the general population have not been ascertained. We aimed to determine wheezing profiles and asthma phenotypes in preschool children in French general population.Symptoms were determined using parental responses to modified versions of ISAAC questionnaire from 2 months to age 5. Supervised wheeze clusters were determined exclusively on trajectory of wheezing while unsupervised (KmL method designed to cluster longitudinal data) clusters were based on eczema, rhinitis, food allergy, cough, wheezing, dyspnea and sleep disturbance due to wheezing from post-natal period to school age.Supervised wheeze clusters were characterized on risk factors atopic/ allergic symptoms and known protective factors from birth till at age 5. While phenotyping of unsupervised clusters was based on the evolution of symptoms, clinical profiles, medications, vaccinations along with above mentioned factors.At age 5, we determined 4 wheeze clusters in 9,161 children. While 9,517 children in unsupervised clusters displayed 4 distinct phenotypes (Figure 1) We have successfully determined early life wheeze and asthma profiles in the french general population.

Source: European Respiratory Journal - November 25, 2021 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Khan, S., Ouaalaya, E. H., Leynaert, B., De Blic, J., Marguet, C., Deschildre, A., Dufourg, M.-N., Bois, C., Charles, M.-A., Delmas, M. C., Divaret Chauveau, A., Scherer, E., Rocchi, S., Reboux, G., Millon, L., Raherison Semjen, C. Tags: Epidemiology Source Type: research