Les phénotypes de l’asthme de l’enfant

Abstract

Asthma must no longer be considered simply as a disease but rather as a complex of multiple syndromes which are associated in various ways. Early onset asthma most often has a familial and allergic component, and it is often associated with a risk of persistence during childhood and then into adulthood. Virus-induced asthma (occurring in young infants and preschool children) has a good long-term prognosis. Nevertheless, severe viral infections with asthma requiring hospitalization are at risk of evolving into asthma which persists to adolescence. Severe childhood asthma is often associated with acute attacks, with predominance in males, and with atopy together with cortico-sensitivity. Inversely, in adolescents the severe asthma phenotype resembles asthma in adults, being predominant in females, with an absence of atopy, and with a history of previous episodes of pneumonia. Asthma is a multiform disease whose phenotype can vary throughout a child's life. Regular re-evaluation of the asthma phenotype in children allows better control of the management of this disease over the long term.