• Eur. Respir. J. · Jul 2000

    Thunderstorm-associated asthma in an inland town in south-eastern Australia. Who is at risk?

    • S T Girgis, G B Marks, S H Downs, A Kolbe, G N Car, and R Paton.
    • Institute of Respiratory Medicine, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
    • Eur. Respir. J. 2000 Jul 1; 16 (1): 3-8.

    AbstractThe aim of the study was to characterize patients at risk of asthma exacerbation during spring thunderstorms and identify potential measures to ameliorate the impact of those events. A case-control study was conducted among patients aged 7-60 yrs, who attended Wagga Hospital (NSW, Australia) for asthma during the period of 1 June 1997 to 31 October 1997. One hundred and eighty-three patients who attended on 30 and 31 October 1997 were the cases and the remaining 121 patients were the controls. Questionnaire data were obtained from 148 (81%) cases and 91 (75%) controls. One hundred and thirty-eight (95%) cases who attended during the thunderstorm gave a history of hayfever prior to the event compared to 66 (74%) controls who attended at other times (odds ratio (OR) 6.01, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.55-14.15); 111 (96%) cases were allergic to rye grass pollen compared to 47 (64%) controls (OR 23.6, 95% CI 6.6-84.3). Among subjects with a prior diagnosis of asthma (64% cases and 82% controls), controls (56%) were more likely to be taking inhaled steroids at time of the thunderstorm than cases (27%, OR 0.3, 95% CI 0.16-0.57). History of hayfever and allergy to rye grass are strong predictors for asthma exacerbation during thunderstorms in spring. The lower rate of inhaled steroid use in thunderstorm cases suggests that this treatment may be effective in preventing severe attacks during thunderstorms.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…