Rhinovirus wheezing illnesses provide early predictor of asthma development

LOS ANGELES — High-risk children with rhinovirus wheezing illnesses are susceptible to developing asthma, according to recent study findings presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting.

“We aimed to assess the role of rhinovirus wheezing illnesses in early life compared to wheezing illnesses caused by other viruses in early life for asthma risk from ages 6 to 13 years in our cohort of children who are at high-risk for asthma development based on parental history,” researcher Halie M. Anderson, MD, of University of Wisconsin, told Healio.com/Allergy.

Halie M. Anderson

The cohort consisted of 259 children followed to age 6 years and 217 children followed to age 13 years. Anderson and colleagues used a generalized additive logistic regression model (GAM) of asthma diagnosed at ages 6, 8, 11 and 13 years.

The GAM had smooth terms for the number of rhinovirus wheezing illnesses and non-rhinovirus wheezing illnesses, and their interaction. The researchers reported main effect P values in the instance of lack of significant interaction.

“We found that the number of rhinovirus wheezing episodes in the first three years of life was significantly associated with asthma risk between ages 6 and 13 years, while the number of non- rhinovirus wheezing episodes was not significantly associated with asthma risk. We feel as though detection of rhinovirus C in our cohort is important and contributes to the asthma risk,” Anderson told Healio.com/Allergy.

“The clinical implications are that rhinovirus wheezing illnesses remain an important predictor of asthma development in high-risk children and ongoing research efforts should focus on defining host and viral factors that promote rhinovirus wheezing illnesses in early life,” Anderson said. – by Alaina Tedesco

Reference: Anderson HM, et al. Abstract 355. Presented at: American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Annual Meeting; March 4-7, 2016; Los Angeles.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.