Pediatric asthma is divided into 3 types according to their age of onset and clinical characteristics: childhood asthma, infantile asthma, and allergic cough.
Clinical diagnostic criteria for childhood asthma.
Asthma is diagnosed in children over 3 years of age when the following conditions are clinically present.
1. major symptoms and signs (must occur repeatedly more than 3 times).
(1) wheezing, shortness of breath or chest tightness.
(2) Paroxysmal cough.
(3) The presence of croup in the lungs.
2. Reference conditions :
(1) Wheezing episodes often have certain favorable seasonal and temporal characteristics;
(2) There are corresponding triggering causes;
(3) There is often a personal or family history of allergy (referring to first and second degree relatives).
3.The wheezing symptoms are reduced or relieved after the administration of bronchodilators.
4.After 0.5% albuterol nebulizer inhalation, the spirometry can be increased by more than 15% in 1 second of forceful exhalation.
Among them, 1 and 3 are the diagnostic conditions, and 2 and 4 are the reference conditions.
Diagnostic criteria for allergic cough.
In children, regardless of age, the diagnosis is made when four of the following are present.
1. Persistent or recurrent cough for more than 1 month, often with episodic cough at night (or early in the morning), with little sputum, aggravated by activity.
2. No clinical signs of infection or long-term treatment with antimicrobial agents is ineffective.
3. Bronchodilators (wheezing medications) alone can relieve coughing episodes (basic diagnostic condition).
4. A personal history of allergy or family history of allergy, airway reactivity measurement, allergen examination, etc. can be used as an auxiliary diagnosis.