title: Elevated level of serum osteopontin in school-age children with asthma.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The role of osteopontin (OPN) has not been elucidated in childhood asthma.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Our purpose was to investigate whether OPN levels change due to allergic inflammation in pre-school and school-age children.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this prospective, cross-sectional study, 42 healthy children and a total of 51 children with asthma were recruited. OPN levels and its association with clinical and laboratory parameters were investigated in the study population. The asthma group were divided into two groups with respect to age, ≤ 5-years (n = 23) and >5-years (n = 28), and labelled Asthma Group 1 and Asthma Group 2, respectively. OPN levels were compared between subgroups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Serum OPN levels were significantly higher in the asthma group when compared to the control group (p = 0.004). OPN levels were similar in Asthma Group 1 and control groups, whereas it was found to be higher in Asthma Group 2 (p>0.025, p = 0.001, respectively). In the >5-years age asthmatic group, OPN levels of the patients with allergic rhinitis (n = 15) were higher than those of the patients (n=13) without allergic rhinitis (p = 0.021).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The study underscores the relationship between childhood asthma and OPN as the first study in the literature. In this study we found that OPN, which plays a role in Th2 mediated inflammation, may also play a role in childhood asthma. The fact that OPN levels do not increase in preschool-age children with asthma might be due to the transient wheezing in this group.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Allergy, Fatih University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey. Electronic address: akelma@gmail.com.
authors.forename: A Z
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: Akelma
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Fatih University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: M N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Cizmeci
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Fatih University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: M K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Kanburoglu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Fatih University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bozkaya
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Allergy, Inonu University Medical School, Malatya, Turkey.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Catal
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Allergy, Fatih University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mete
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Fatih University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kutukoglu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry, Fatih University Medical School, Ankara, Turkey.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Namuslu
mesh_terms: D001249:Asthma / Q000097:blood*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D053495:Osteopontin / Q000097:blood*; D011446:Prospective Studies
chemical_list: D053495:Osteopontin
keywords: Childhood asthma; Osteopontin; Persistent wheezing; Preschool children