Investigators: Graham Hall, Rebecca Hii, Shannon Simpson, Stephen Stick
Partner: Perth Children’s Hospital
Asthma is a lung disease that results in wheeze, which is heard as high pitched, musical and/or whistling sounds from the chest. Wheeze is often present with cough and shortness of breath. Symptoms brought on by exercise are common in asthma and are sometimes the only reported symptoms. In older children and adults, an exercise and/or a mannitol test is used to help diagnose exercise induced asthma. However, young children find it hard to do the lung function test that is normally used.
At Perth Children's Hospital, we have a newer lung function test that can be easily performed by children as young as three years. In this study, we are combining this new lung function test with an exercise or mannitol test so we can see how well the mannitol test identifies exercise induced asthma in young children. We hope that this study will help to improve the diagnosis and management of young children with exercise related asthma in the future.