Wheezing exacerbations in early childhood: evaluation, treatment, and recent advances relevant to the genesis of asthma

Miller, E. Kathryn; Avila, Pedro C.; Khan, Yasmin W.; Word, Carolyn R.; Pelz, Barry J.; Papadopoulos, Nikolaos G.; Peebles, R. Stokes; Heymann, Peter W.

Children who begin wheezing during early childhood are seen frequently by health care providers in primary care, in hospitals and emergency departments, and by allergists and pulmonologists. When young children, like the 2 year-old case presented here, are evaluated for wheezing, a frequent challenge for clinicians is to determine whether the symptoms represent transient, viral-induced wheezing, or whether sufficient risk factors are present to suspect that the child may experience recurrent wheezing and develop asthma. Most factors influencing prognosis are not mutually exclusive, are interrelated (i.e., cofactors), and often represent gene-environment interactions. Many of these risk factors have been, and continue to be, investigated in prospective studies in order to decipher their relative importance with the goal of developing new therapies and interventions in the future. The etiologies of wheezing in young children, diagnostic methods, treatment, prognostic factors, and potential targets for prevention of the development of asthma are discussed.