Is bronchial hyuperresponsiveness more frequent in women than in men?: a population-based study

摘要

To test the hypothesis that a greater proportion of women than men react to methacholine chal- lenge and investigate the possible reasons for any differences observed, we recruited 495 subjects 20 to 44 yr of age (50.90/100 male) in Paris and 304 subjects (51.3/100 male) in Montpellier (France), as part of the European Community Respiratory health Survey. The proportion of responders (PD_20 ≤ 4 mg methacholine) was 33.7/100 in women and 11.9/100 in men (odds ratio = 3.8;95/100 confidence interval = 2.4-6.0) in Paris and 43.2/100 in women and 29.5/100 in men (odds ratio = 3.8;95/100 confidence interval = 1.1-2.9) in Montpellier.