Early ‘wees’ may be key to asthma diagnoses

A simple urine test may soon be available to take the guesswork out of diagnosing asthma in early childhood.

Despite being the age group most commonly hospitalised for asthma, children under the age of four years of age are at high risk of misdiagnosis, with around 70 per cent of wheezy pre-schoolers outgrowing their condition by school age.

The lack of a definitive diagnosis risks not only delaying treatment in children who need it, but prolonging unnecessary – and potentially harmful – treatment in those whose wheezing might be relatively short-lived.

But now, thanks to State Government-supported local research, a definitive test could be on the horizon.

The research, led by Perth Children’s Hospital paediatric respiratory physician and Telethon Kids Institute researcher, Dr André Schultz investigated urine samples from more than 200 children aged between two and 10 years across four groups – healthy school-aged, school aged with asthma, wheezy pre-schoolers and healthy pre-schoolers.

It found that the urine of school-aged children with sustained asthma had a distinct “chemical fingerprint” which was also present in some of the wheezy pre-schoolers.

Dr Schultz is confident that this fingerprint could hold the key to predicting pre-schoolers who go on to develop long-term asthma and plans to follow the study’s participants for the next five to 10 years to see if the correlation is sustained.

Validation of his theory could pave the way for a simple and effective means of predicting and diagnosing asthma in early childhood, with Dr Schultz’ ultimate goal being to develop a diagnostic dipstick.

Dr Schultz says the beauty of a having a urine test is that it is simple and non-invasive, so unlikely to cause anxiety in young children.

His study was one of 15 research projects awarded funding in the fourth round of the TPCHRF, a joint collaboration between the Department of Health and Channel 7 Telethon Trust that funds research focusing on the health of children and adolescents.

Assistant Director General Clinical Excellence at the Department of Health, Dr James Williamson, welcomed the promising early results of Dr Schulz’ research which he said exemplified the important research taking place across the WA Health System.

Asthma is among the leading causes of disease burden in children up to the age of 14, with about 10 per cent experiencing the condition long term.

Dr Williamson said the study had the potential to improve clinical care and outcomes for children who developed life-long asthma as well as those whose wheezing was restricted to early childhood.

Dr Schultz’ research was undertaken in collaboration with researchers from Edith Cowan University.

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