title: Problems and possibilities in understanding the natural history of asthma.
abstract: In early life, asthma symptoms can occur intermittently or may not be severe enough to limit normal activities, which makes it difficult for the clinician to make reliable predictions and administer therapy with some precision. In the case of pediatric asthma, the identification of children who will experience the development of a clinically important illness that will impair their quality of life can be a complex process. The usual methods for describing this information include the prognostic statistics of sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio, and positive predictive value. The sensitivity, specificity, and likelihood ratio of various early markers of asthma have been calculated from several cohort studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: J K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Peat
authors.forename: B G
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Toelle
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Mellis
mesh_terms: D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D011379:Prognosis; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity