Chest
ORIGINAL RESEARCHASTHMAIncreased Risk of Childhood Asthma From Antibiotic Use in Early Life
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
This was a longitudinal study (known as the Study of Asthma, Genes and the Environment) of a cohort of 13,980 children born in Manitoba in 1995 and continuously registered with the Manitoba Health Services Insurance Plan (MHSIP) until 2003. The likelihood of asthma at age 7 years according to antibiotic prescription use during the first year of life was determined. Data sources were the complete health-care administrative records for the cohort, including all physician visits, hospitalizations,
Results
In the study cohort of 13,116 children at age 7 years, 50% were male, 57% lived in urban areas, 24% were from low-income families, 90% had siblings, 6% had current asthma at age 7 years, and 5% had a maternal history of asthma; 65% of children had received at least one antibiotic prescription during the first year of life, 3% of children had received NS antibiotics and no BS antibiotics, 52% of children had received BS antibiotics and no NS antibiotics, and 10% of children had received both
Discussion
In a cohort of 13,116 children born in Manitoba in 1995, we found an association between antibiotic use in the first year of life and asthma at age 7 years. Children receiving more than four courses of antibiotics were at 1.5 times the risk of having asthma develop than were children not receiving antibiotics. Our analysis was adjusted for reverse causation, health-care utilization bias, and many well-known risk factors for asthma, and used a health-care database definition of asthma with a
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to acknowledge the computer analysis support of Matthew Dahl and Shamima Huq; as well as the research support provided by Marilyn Lilley, Brenda Gerwing, Michelle Tillett, Ingrid Loewen, Rishma Chooniedass, Tanya Lilley-Chan, Donna Everette, and Joel Liem in the collection of data for the nested case-control study used to validate the asthma definition.
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This research was funded by the Operating Grant, New Investigator Award, and by New Emerging Team Programs of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
The results and conclusions are those of the authors and no official endorsement by Manitoba Health was intended or should be inferred.
The authors have reported to the ACCP that no significant conflicts of interest exist with any companies/organizations whose products or services may be discussed in this article.