Health care education, delivery, and qualityExposure to dust mite allergen and endotoxin in early life and asthma and atopy in childhood
Section snippets
Study population
Study participants were recruited between September 1994 and August 1996. The screening and recruitment of families have been described in detail elsewhere.10, 11 In brief, eligibility criteria included residence in the Boston metropolitan area; maternal age ≥18 years; and history of hay fever, asthma, or allergies in at least 1 of the child's parents. Families were not screened if the newborn was hospitalized in the intensive care unit, if his/her gestational age was < 36 weeks, or if he/she
Results
The characteristics of the 498 study subjects have been described in detail elsewhere.26, 27 Of the 498 study participants, 440 (88.4%) were followed to the age of 7 years, and 271 (54.4%) had an assessment of allergic sensitization at school age. There was no statistically significant difference in exposure to endotoxin or dust mite allergen at age 2 to 3 months among children at baseline, children followed up to age 7 years, and children with assessment of allergic sensitization (Table I).
Discussion
Sporik et al1 first reported a strong association between exposure to ≥ 10 μg/g house dust mite in infancy and asthma at age 11 years among children with parental history of asthma or hay fever. That study was limited by small sample size (n = 59) and loss of follow-up of study participants. Our finding of a positive association between early dust mite allergen exposure and asthma in a larger cohort of children precisely replicate the results of Sporik et al,1 and together with those of a
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Supported by grants AIEHS35786 and ES07036 from the National Institutes of Health to D.R.G. and D.K.M. J.C.C. is supported by grants HL04370, HL079966, and HL073373 from the National Institutes of Health.
Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: D. R. Gold has lectured for Inbio. The rest of the authors have declared that they have no conflict of interest.