Re: “Antibiotic Exposure by 6 Months and Asthma and Allergy at 6 Years: Findings in a Cohort of 1,401 US Children”

摘要

Risnes et al. (1) recently evaluated the association between use of antibiotics in early life and asthma occurrence in childhood. They considered the possibility that the association, already found in several published reports (2), might be due to confounding rather than represent a causal effect. In particular, they are concerned about “protopathic bias” (3) “that applies if early asthma symptoms are the reason for antibiotic treatment” (1, p. 315). The authors suggest that “protopathic bias may be minimized by considering only antibiotic exposure that occurs several years before the onset of asthma symptoms” (1, p. 315). However, they do not present the crucial information on when wheezing symptoms started and whether antibiotics were given during wheezing episodes.