[Increase in prevalence of childhood asthma in Budapest in relation to the air pollution data and the total pollen count].

The authors surveyed the prevalence of bronchial asthma in childhood in Budapest in 1995 and in February 1999, via questionnaires directed to paediatricians. In 1995, replies were received from 118 paediatricians in 11 districts, who were responsible for the supervision of 104,087 children, of these, 1.88 +/- 0.87% had been diagnosed as having asthma. In 1999, replies were sent by 153 physicians in 22 of the 23 districts, who had a total of 142,684 children under their care. These included 3228 asthmatics, i.e. a prevalence of 2.26 +/- 0.95%. The difference between the two data was highly significant (p = 0.0001). The prevalence increased by 20% in 4 years. The dust, CO, NO2 and SO2 concentrations in the air were measured constantly at 8 points in Budapest, while ozone level measurements were also made at 2 stations. The counts of pollens and of fungal elements in the air were calculated separately for Buda and for Pest. These data overall revealed that the level of air pollution in Budapest did not deteriorate in the period in question, and the pollen counts from allergizing plants did not rise relative to earlier years. An interesting question (though it is far from certain that this is a causal correlation) can be upposed whether the 13% drop in the number of live births in Hungary during this 4-year period can be connected with the 20% rise in prevalence of childhood asthma.