Tool helps ID young children at high risk for asthma

Tool helps ID young children at high risk for asthma

The CHILDhood Asthma Risk Tool (CHART) can identify children at high risk for asthma at as early as 3 years of age, according to a study published online Oct. 6 in JAMA Network Open.

Myrtha E. Reyna, from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and colleagues developed and evaluated the use of a symptom-based screening tool to detect children at high risk for asthma at age 3 years, persistent wheeze symptoms at 5 years, and health care burden.

The researchers found that CHART applied in the CHILD Study at 3 years of age outperformed physician assessments and the modified Asthma Predictive Index in predicting persistent wheeze (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUROC], 0.94), asthma diagnosis (AUROC, 0.73), and health care use (emergency department visits or hospitalization for wheeze or asthma; AUROC, 0.70). In two external validation sets, CHART had a similar predictive performance for persistent wheeze in children at 5 years of age (AUROC, 0.82) and at 7 years of age (AUROC, 0.87).

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