الفهرس 
SmokingOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 174 |  |  |
| | | from | 174 | | |
Abstract
Smoking is a major public health issue due to its direct effect on health.
Passive smoking is one of most important cause of bronchitis, pneumonia, coughing and troubled breathing, and fits of asthma, middle ear infection and cardiovascular damage in children and adult.
This work was done to study the effect of smoking on respiratory system and pulmonary function and to correlate between urinary cotinine level as a marker of passive exposure to tobacco smoke in young preschool children.
This cross sectional study was done at Ain Shams University Hospital from period November 2008 to June 2009.
The studied children were collected from the inpatients ward and the outpatients clinic and were divided into two groups group A (25 children who were exposed to passive smoking), group B (25 children who were not exposed to passive smoking).
The studied children were subjected to full medical history laying stress on history of respiratory symptoms and repeated attack of chest infections, full clinical examination laying stress on chest examination.
Urine samples were collected from each studied child to assess urinary cotinine level and pulmonary functions were measured for all subjects using impulse oscillometry.
In our study the passive smoker children were 17 male and 8 female with mean age 4.48 + 1.05 years and the control subjects were collected sex and age matched for the patients
Also the two studied groups were selected to be of the same socioeconomic standard.
Anthropometric measurement (weight and height) were significantly reduced in children of group A (passive smokers) and these patients also suffered from repeated respiratory tract infection more than these with non exposure.
In this young age (preschool), testing pulmonary functions in the form of total and peripheral respiratory resistance and pulmonary capacitance using IOS failed to detect the detrimental effects of passive smoking. Using another methodology for testing pulmonary function or doing a follow up study by IOS may be needed to document any deterioration of pulmonary functions in children exposed to ETS.
Urinary cotinine level in exposed children to ETS was higher than non exposed children and also higher in exposed children who complained of repeated attack of chest problem or infections.
.
Active as well as passive smoking should be considered as a real risk factor to health. It is thus recommended that governmental and health professionals should explain the hazards of smoking whether active or passive on the health to the parents.