Chest
Characteristics of Asthma among Elderly Adults in a Sample of the General Population
Section snippets
METHODS
The subjects are part of a longitudinal study of a stratified random cluster sample of white, non-Mexican-American households in Tucson, AZ, in 1971 to 1972. Details of selection of the population sample have been published.4 New members of these households have continued to be enrolled throughout the follow-up period. Some of the new enrollees were new spouses as well as some parents who moved in with their children. Through the eighth survey of this population, completed in 1984, a total of
Asthma and IgE:
As noted under the “Methods” section, the mean IgE of asthmatics is significantly elevated. Even in these elderly subjects, a minority of whom are STpos, there is a very close relationship between the prevalence of asthma and age- and sex-standardized serum IgE level, as shown in Figure 1.
Smoking and Asthma
The smoking histories of our asthmatic subjects and the relationship of their smoking habits to some other characteristics are summarized and compared with findings in nonasthmatics in Table 2. Even after
DISCUSSION
Active asthma appears to be a relatively common problem in subjects older than 65 years who are part of a population sample being followed up longitudinally in Tucson. Since our population could well be biased by selective in-migration to southern Arizona of patients with this type of disorder, we decided to send a brief questionnaire to 25 pulmonary physicians in other parts of the United States to determine whether they are seeing similar types of patients. It was completed by 23 of the 25
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Cited by (0)
Supported by a Specialized Center of Research Grant (HL 14136) from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute