Are high barometric pressure, low humidity and diurnal change of temperature related to the onset of asthmatic symptoms?
BACKGROUND
Meteorologic factors play a role in the expression of asthmatic symptoms; however, there are controversies about the causal relationship between meteorologic factors and asthma. The relationship between meteorologic parameters and emergency admissions for asthmatic symptoms in this hospital were analyzed.


METHODS
A total of 205 patients (130 boys and 75 girls, 0.1-16.6 years of age) who were admitted to Hakodate Chuo General Hospital for asthmatic symptoms between 1 January and 31 December 1997 were submitted to our study. We divided a total of 365 days into two groups of days with and without any admissions. Meteorologic factors for the days with admissions and 1-3 days before hospitalization were compared with those of the days of no admissions. Statistical analysis was done with the Mann-Whitney U-test.


RESULTS
On the days with admissions and 1 day before hospitalizations, barometric pressure was higher and relative humidity lower than on days with no admissions. The diurnal difference between maximum and minimum temperature for days 1 day before days with admissions was larger than that for 1 day before days with no admissions.


CONCLUSIONS
It is thought that change in barometric pressure, relative humidity and temperature had some influence on the worsening of asthmatic symptoms.
Ehara
A
A
Department of Pediatrics, Hakodate Chuo General Hospital, Hokkaido, Japan. akira.ehara@nifty.ne.jp
Takasaki
H
H
Takeda
Y
Y
Kida
T
T
Mizukami
S
S
Hagisawa
M
M
Yamada
Y
Y
D001249:Asthma / Q000209:etiology*; D001274:Atmospheric Pressure; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D006813:Humidity / Q000009:adverse effects*; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D010507:Periodicity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013696:Temperature