Long-term treatment with corticosteroids and ACTH in asthmatic children. I. A pulmonary function study with re-investigation after 5 years.

Twenty-one children aged 6-17 years with severe bronchial asthma and on long-term treatment with corticosteroids and/or ACTH, were studied when they were as symptom-free as possible. They were found to have increased lung volumes and hyperinflation with a high end-expiratory level. The forced expiratory 1-s volume (FEV1) was within +/- 2 SD for healthy children, but the FEV% was significantly decreased, as a sign of sub-clinical bronchial obstruction. Arterial oxygen tensions was within normal limits, except in one patient with clinical signs of bronchial obstruction. On re-examination 5 years later, hyperinflation and sub-clinical obstruction were even more pronounced, despite the fact that the majority of the patients had improved clinically.