Wheezing with rhinovirus can predict asthma odds in high-risk children
15 October 2008

Children who experience wheezing with the rhinovirus infection – the virus responsible for the common cold – in early life, have an increased risk of developing asthma later during childhood according to research.

American researcher Robert Lemanske and his team from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health recruited 300 newborns at high risk for asthma (with one or both parents having had allergies or asthma).

The infants were followed from birth to six years and evaluated for the presence of specific viruses during wheezing illness as part of the researchers’ Childhood Origins of Asthma (COAST) study.

They found that at six years old, 28% of the children had asthma and those who had wheezed with rhinovirus were disproportionately among them. 

Children who wheezed with rhinovirus during the first year of life were also nearly three times as likely to have asthma at age six, whereas children who wheezed with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), another common respiratory ailment that has been linked to asthma risk in children, did not have an increased asthma risk.
 
The novel finding is that ‘wheezing rhinovirus illnesses occurring at any time during the first three years of life were associated with a nearly 10-fold increase in asthma risk at six years, making them the most significant predictor of asthma development in the high risk COAST cohort,’ wrote Daniel Jackson, lead author of the article published in the American Journal of Respirtory and Critical Care Medicine.

‘Nearly 90% of the children wheezing with rhinovirus during year three subsequently developed asthma at age six,’ he added.

Dr Elaine Vickers, Research Manager at Asthma UK, said: ‘This study provides important new information about the link between early viral infections, wheezing, and the risk of asthma developing by age six.
 
‘We would like to reassure parents that the majority of wheezy pre-school children grow out of their symptoms by school age. Further research is now needed, however, to discover why wheezing in response to viral respiratory infections is particularly linked to asthma, as this might suggest ways to prevent asthma in young children.’