Asthma diagnosis and treatmentGeographic variations in the effect of atopy on asthma in the European Community Respiratory Health Study
Section snippets
Methods
The ECRHS study followed a cross-sectional design and was undertaken during the years 1990 through 1994. Populations and subjects participating in the study have been described in detail elsewhere.3 The data presented here pertain to 13,558 individuals randomly selected from the general population (age range, 20-44 years) in 36 centers in 16 countries.
Asthma was defined as used in the ECRHS, namely a positive answer to any of 3 questions referring to nocturnal attacks of shortness of breath,
Results
The prevalence of specific IgE sensitization varied widely between centers, even in the same country (eg, for house dust mite, from 7% to 28% in Spain or from 18% to 35% in France; Table I). Overall, the prevalence of sensitization to house dust mite (21%) is similar to that to grass (19%), and in some of the centers, sensitization to grass is more prevalent than that to house dust mite. Mite, grass, and cat all demonstrated statistically significant heterogeneity between centers. Twenty-eight
Discussion
First, we found that between one third and one half of the prevalent cases of asthma among adults between 20 and 44 years old in the general population could be attributed to sensitization to common inhaled allergens. Second, the population AF of atopy in asthma varied widely between centers, even within the same country. Third, we found that the AF for house dust mite varied between centers, which in general did not occur for cat or grass. These findings were obtained by using the same
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