Dynamics of respiratory symptoms during infancy and associations with wheezing at school age.

ABSTRACT: Children with frequent respiratory symptoms in infancy have an increased risk for later wheezing, but the association with symptom dynamics is unknown. We developed an observer-independent method to characterise symptom dynamics and tested their association with subsequent respiratory morbidity. In this birth-cohort of healthy neonates, we prospectively assessed weekly respiratory symptoms during infancy, resulting in a time series of 52 symptom scores. For each infant, we calculated the transition probability between two consecutive symptom scores. We used these transition probabilities to construct a Markov matrix, which characterised symptom dynamics quantitatively using an entropy parameter. Using this parameter, we determined phenotypes by hierarchical clustering. We then studied the

SUBMITTER: Usemann J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6243079 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature