Attained adult height after childhood asthma: Effect of glucocorticoid therapy☆,☆☆,★,★★
Section snippets
Study setting
Rochester, Minnesota, is located 90 miles southeast of Minneapolis and is centrally located in Olmsted County. In 1990 the population of Rochester was 70,745 (94% white). With the exception of a higher proportion of residents employed in the health care industry, the characteristics of Rochester are similar to those of the U.S. white population. Population-based epidemiologic research is possible in this setting because essentially all medical care for Rochester residents is provided by the
Results
At the time the study was initiated, 778 members of the updated asthma cohort had experienced onset of asthma during childhood and had attained adult height (age 17 in girls and age 19 in boys) and were therefore eligible for the study. Fifty-six members of the original cohort were excluded because of unavailable current addresses (37 cases), revised diagnoses (4 cases), deaths (2 cases), or other miscellaneous reasons (13 cases). The remaining 722 Rochester residents with onset of asthma
Discussion
This study used a population-based incidence cohort of patients with asthma as a sampling frame to enroll subjects with onset of asthma before attaining adult height. The adult height of patients with asthma, adjusted for parental height, was not significantly different from the height of nonasthmatic subjects, suggesting that, overall, asthma does not have an important effect on attained adult height. The attained adult height of patients with asthma who received glucocorticoids was not
Acknowledgements
We thank Joanne Mair, RN, and Judy Blomgren, RN, for their untiring effort in recruiting eligible members of the original asthma cohort and age- and sex-matched nonasthmatic residents of Rochester, Minnesota, for the study. We also thank Lee Bellrichard, RN, and Mary Lou Notermann, RN, for reviewing the subjects' medical records.
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Cited by (0)
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From athe Division of Area General Internal Medicine, bthe Department of Health Sciences Research, cthe Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, and dthe Division of Allergic Diseases and Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation, Rochester.
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Supported by a grant from Schering-Plough Research, a grant from the National Institutes of Health (AI-25187), and the Mayo Foundation.
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Reprint requests: Marc D. Silverstein, MD, Center for Health Care Research, Medical University of South Carolina, 171 Ashley Ave., Charleston, SC 29425.
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