الفهرس 
Bronchial Asthma in childhoodOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 150 |  |  |
| | | from | 150 | | |
Abstract
Introduction: Exposure of children to environmental tobacco smoke has been linked to many complications including bronchial asthma. Cotinine is a nicotine biomarker measurable in the blood, urine or saliva. Household smoking is associated with higher cotinine levels among asthmatic children.
Aim of the work: this study aimed to identify the relation between urinary cotinine level and severity of bronchial asthma in asthmatic children exposed to environmental tobacco smoke aged from 2 to 12 years and to measure reliability of self-reporting of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke compared to urinary cotinine level.
Subjects and methods: 113 asthmatic children attending chest clinic in pediatric department in Ain Shams University were enrolled in this study. Their parents were interviewed to fill a questionnaire and urine sample were collected from the children. Children with diagnosis other than asthma were excluded from this study.
Results: for those children who were exposed to ETS (n=82), the mean urinary cotinine level differs significantly among different levels of diagnosis of bronchial asthma (p=0.001), being lowest for mild disease (24 + 16.97) ng\mg creatinine, and highest for severe form (88.21 + 60.11) ng\mg creatinine. children exposed to ETS (cot. ≥ 30) differed significantly from those not exposed as regard reporting of exposure; sensitivity of reporting to detect ETS exposure was (89.1%), and specificity to exclude ETS exposure was 49%. Reporting detected false exposure of 51% from those not exposed to ETS (cot. less than 30).
Conclusion: Severe asthma is associated with high urinary cotinine levels which indicate that, environmental tobacco smoke exposure increasing the asthma severity. Reporting for exposure to ETS is not reliable for quantitative assessment of ETS exposure, which means that there was misreporting by parents about the exposure of their children