Dry night cough as a marker of allergy in preschool children: the PARIS birth cohort. Issue 2 (1st March 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rancière, Fanny; Nikasinovic, Lydia; Momas, Isabelle
• Is Part Of: Pediatric allergy and immunology. Volume 24:Issue 2(2013)
• Page Start: 131
• Page End: 137
• Publication Date: 2013-03-01
• Subjects: Allergy in children -- Periodicals; Immunologic diseases in children -- Periodicals; 617
• DOI: 10.1111/pai.12045
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0905-6157

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="pai12045-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <sec id="pai12045-sec-0001" sec-type="section"> <title>Background</title> <p>Early detection of children at risk for developing allergy is an important challenge. Our first analyses in infants from the Pollution and Asthma Risk: an Infant Study (PARIS) birth cohort suggested that dry night cough was associated with parental‐reported allergic disorders. The aim of the present study was to refine this finding by investigating the time course of dry night cough from birth to age 4 yr in relation to blood markers of atopy and allergic morbidity.</p> </sec> <sec id="pai12045-sec-0002" sec-type="section"> <title>Methods</title> <p>Health outcomes were regularly assessed by parental self‐administered questionnaires. Blood markers of atopy were measured at age 18 months. Children with similar patterns of dry night cough over the first 4 yr of life were grouped together using <italic>k</italic>‐means clustering. Associations with atopy/allergy were studied using multinomial logistic regression.</p> </sec> <sec id="pai12045-sec-0003" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>Three trajectories of dry night cough were identified in 1869 children. Besides the never/infrequent pattern (72.4%), the transient pattern (8.8%) was composed of children who coughed in the first year and recovered by age 4 yr, while the rising pattern (18.8%) included all symptomatic children at age 4 yr, whether they were persistent or late coughers. Compared with the never/infrequent pattern, the rising pattern was significantly associated with elevated total immunoglobulin E (IgE) level (odds ratio [OR] = 1.70, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.21–2.39) and inhalant allergens sensitization (OR = 2.66, 95% CI = 1.26–5.61) at age 18 months, and with doctor‐diagnosed allergic diseases over the first 4 yr such as hay fever (OR = 2.52, 95% CI = 1.49–4.26) and eczema (OR = 1.29, 95% CI = 1.00–1.66).</p> </sec> <sec id="pai12045-sec-0004" sec-type="section"> <title>Conclusions</title> <p>This study provides evidence that persistent/late dry night cough may indicate allergy in preschool children.</p> </sec> </abstract>