Effect of Family History and Parental Smoking on the Development of Asthma in Turkish Adult Asthmatics

Objectives: To determine the distribution of family history and the importance of parental smoking in Turkish people with asthma.

Patients and Methods: 60 (46 female) asthmatics (41±15 years) and 59 (47 female) age and sex matched non-atopic controls (41 ± 15 years) without any respiratory symptom were included in the study. All of the subjects were non-smokers. All of the asth­matics had positive skin prick test.

Results: In this study, 23 of 59 the asthmatics (40%) had severe and 36 of 59 asthmatics (60%) had mild disease. We found that prevalance of asthma in family members of the asthmatics was sig­nificantly greater than in controls. 44 of the asthmatics (%75) and 14 of controls (%23) had positive family history for asthma (p<0.0001, OR 9.6, CI 4.1-22.3). Positive family history seemed of a familial clustering did not show any difference between patients with bronchial hyperreactivity and without BHR. Parental smoking history was seen in 35 (60%) of asthmat­ics and 42 (70%) of controls, (p>0.05).

Conclusions: Our study shows that there is a familial clustering in Turkish asthmatic patients and genetic susceptibility is important in asthma pathogenesis. Parental smoking history has no effect on asthma pathogenesis in the middle-aged asthmatic patient.