Respiratory morbidity and lung function after whooping-cough.

360 primary-school children with a history of whooping-cough were shown to have experienced an excess of other chest illnesses compared with 711 controls. This susceptibility may, however, have antedated the whooping-cough. Current respiratory symptoms were also more common in children who had had whooping-cough, though no differences were found on physical examination. No differences were found in lung function between cases and controls. Whooping-cough, as experienced by British children in recent years, is unlikely to cause subsequent respiratory morbidity and does not result in impaired lung function in later childhood.