The Prognosis of Bronchitis Asthmatoides During the First Year of Life

Abstract

Bronchitis asthmatoides is the syndrome more commonly known to American pediatricians as capillary bronchitis or interstitial pneumonia as seen in the first year of life. The familiar manifestations include acute onset of expiratory dyspnea and signs of bronchiolar spasm and obstruction, usually accompanied by fever. The attack is of short duration and bears many resemblances to an attack of asthma. The question has frequently been raised whether this syndrome is a manifestation of asthma in infancy and carries a prognosis for established attacks of asthma during the remainder of childhood. The author examined 219 patients, 10 to 20 years after an initial attack of this syndrome in infancy, and inquired as to the presence of asthmatic attacks in the intervening years; 5.5 per cent of the children had asthma and 15.5 per cent bronchitis; 79 per cent had no symptoms. Thus the attack of asthmatoid bronchitis during the first year of life was, in the majority, the only attack of such illness. There was a greater tendency for those children who had other allergic manifestations to have developed asthma. Thus it was concluded that an acute attack of asthmatoid bronchitis in infancy does not necessarily carry a prognosis for development of asthma in later life, in fact the majority do not show such a sequel.