RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Late-breaking abstract: Asthma through childhood; do children remit from their disease? JF European Respiratory Journal JO Eur Respir J FD European Respiratory Society SP p1127 VO 38 IS Suppl 55 A1 Vegard Hovland A1 Amund Riiser A1 Petter Mowinckel A1 Kai-Håkon Carlsen A1 Karin Cecilie Lødrup Carlsen YR 2011 UL http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/Suppl_55/p1127.abstract AB Background and aim: Around 50% of children with early wheeze outgrow their disease according to the literature. In a prospective birth cohort running through puberty, we assessed persistence, remission and relapse of asthma.Methods: Time-course asthma phenotypes (figure below) were constructed from the 2-10-16 yrs investigations in the Oslo “Environment and Childhood Asthma” study, based on the presence/absence of recurrent (≥2) bronchial obstruction (rBO) 0-2 yrs, and asthma from 2-10 and 10-16 yrs defined as ≥2 of: doctor diagnosis/symptoms/asthma-medication use. Positive bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR) at 16 years required a PD20-metacholine <8μmol.Figure 1Results: Of the 550 subjects (52% boys) attending all investigations, 228 children had rBO/asthma in at least one time-period, 143 with rBO (figure below). Among rBO children at 16 yrs, 34% had asthma, whereas 51% of those in remission had symptoms, medication use and/or BHR, compared to 27% with never asthma (p<0,001), thus 33% only were without signs of asthma.Figure 2. Distribution of time-course asthma phenotypes from birth to 16 yearsConclusion: Only one third of the early wheezers were in true clinical remission by 16 years. Thus early recurrent “wheeze” appears less benign than commonly reported.