Asthma predictors in infantile atopic dermatitis.

In a search for predictive factors in early childhood for later developing childhood asthma, sixty chidren who suffered in the first year of life from atopic dermatitis were examined at ages between 6-11 years. There were 40 boys and 20 girls, of whom 21 were asthmatic boys and 10 asthmatic girls. The non-asthma group was similar to the asthma group in age, sex and socio-economic background and familial-hereditary background. The psychosocial aspects of the study were not reported in this paper. The atopic dermatitis followed a different pattern in the asthmatic group than in the non-asthma group. A continuation of the atopic eczematous condition in infancy beyond two years appeared to be highly predictive for future childhood asthma. Severity of the eczema in infancy does not seem to be a strong predictor in boys and not at all in the small group of girls. Persistent eczema appeared twice as much in the asthmatic boys as in the asthmatic girls. There was no distinct difference between the asthmatic children and the non-asthmatic children in time of onset of the infantile eczema nor in the location of the atopic dermatitis.