Effect of Passive Smoking on Lung Function and ... - Springer Link

9 downloads 0 Views 89KB Size Report
The effects from passive smoking to children's health and especially to their respiratory system have been studied in extend.1-8 Tobacco smoke contains over ...
Original Article

Effect of Passive Smoking on Lung Function and Respiratory Infection Athanassios Chatzimicael1, Aggelos Tsalkidis1, Dimitrios Cassimos1, Stefanos Gardikis2, Diogenis Spathopoulos1, Gregorios A. Tripsianis3, Katerina Kambouri2, Victor Aivazis4, George Vaos2 and Demosthenes Bouros5 Departments of Pediatrics, 2Pediatric Surgery, University, 3Medical Statistics, 41st Pediatric Clinic of Aristotle Univercity of Thessaloniki, 5Pneumonology, University Hospital, Democritus, University of Thrace, Medical School, Alexandroupolis, Greece

ABSTRACT Objective. To study the effect of environmental tobacco smoke to children’s health and more specifically to the development of respiratory tract infections and also its influence to their respiratory function. Methods. We studied 586 children from the district of west Thrace in Greece aged 5-14 years, randomly selected from 20 primary and 10 secondary schools in regards their exposure to tobacco smoke, and its possible relation with respiratory tract infections. We assessed respiratory function by spirometry. Epidemiological data were also analysed. Results. Children who were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke had higher risk for upper and lower respiratory tract infections in comparison to children who lived in a smoke free environment (3 fold and 2 fold, respectively}.Their lung function was also reduced with decreased values of FEV1, FEF50, PFR (values p