TY - T1的吸入型皮质类固醇激素和综合的wth of lung function in children JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 795 LP - 796 DO - 10.1183/09031936.04.00035304 VL - 23 IS - 6 AU - Silverman, M. Y1 - 2004/06/01 UR - //www.qdcxjkg.com/content/23/6/795.abstract N2 - This month's edition of the European Respiratory Journal contains two papers that address the important topic of the effect of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) on lung development in childhood 1, 2. The papers are important because: 1) they raise important methodological issues concerning the design of outcome studies in children; 2) they illustrate different approaches to the measurement of lung function in different age groups (preschool children and teenagers, respectively); 3) they raise questions about the relationship between the structure and function in the developing lung; and 4) they fuel the debate about the appropriate choice of outcomes in managing ICS therapy in children. These points, in turn, are considered below. First, the design of the two studies is quite different. Devulapalli et al. 1 carried out a longitudinal observational study of a population sample in which young children who were prescribed ICS for “recurrent bronchial obstruction” (undefined) were compared with untreated symptomatic and symptom-free groups. Although the design is justified as being “based upon … real life”, it suffers from the shortfall that an independent effect of ICS on functional outcome cannot be deduced from the results presented. At best, it is possible to conclude that both treated and untreated young children with recurrent bronchial obstruction appear functionally to return towards normal by 2 yrs of age. Multivariate analysis might have added strength to the assumption that this process was indeed related in someway to ICS therapy, rather than being simply … ER -