This exemplifies what many such studies do; sample from the upper respiratory tract to find signs of replicating virus in order to study a disease of the lower respiratory tract.
It's a stretch but if you go along with it you are implying that an upper respiratory tract infection either triggers the symptoms from afar or that the virus travels into the lower respiratory tract to directly cause inflammation and/or cell destruction.
Viruses were detected by PCR-based methods.
Some key findings...
- Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was the virus detected most often (51/102 samples from 153 children) in children who were admitted with wheezing followed by rhinoviruses (RV; 21 or 14%), RSV+RV (12 or 8%) and then parainfluenza virus 3 (PIV3; 8 or 5%), influenza virus (IFV; 5 or 3%) or human metapneumovirus (hMPV; 5 or 3%)
- A similar pattern was observed in 259 children who were admitted without wheezing (RSV-25%; RV 9%; IFV 7%; RSV+RV-4%; PIV3-3%; hMPV-1%)
- 67% of children with wheezing were virus positive (POS)
- Children with an allergic predisposition (IgE antibody levels >30IU/mL at admission and a parental history of asthma) POS for RSV more often had wheezing later
- Children who were wheezing & RV POS when they were admitted were more likely to wheeze again than were those who were RV POS without wheeze at admission.
So [allergic predisposition + RSV] or [wheeze/clinical severity + RV] were 2 factors related to subsequent wheeze.
The authors also raised the spectre of RV positivity occurring in asymptomatic individuals in other studies. However, that can happen to some extent with all respiratory viruses. No other virus has 160 distinct type like the RVs...but that's another story.
Article...
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