Article of the Week: ICS and Adult Height

selection and commentary by Theresa Walls

To summarize in a few sentences, this article in NEJM this month follows children who were originally enrolled in the Childhood Asthma Management Program (CAMP) clinical trial back in 1993-1995 to their adult height. They found that the adjusted mean height for children who used budesonide was 1.2cm lower than for those who used placebo. I won't go into detail about all of the factors adjusted for, but only say that in my opinion the biostats seem very solid and they thought of everything!
I thought this one was relevant for a few few reasons:
1) it was on the news ticker on my computer so our patients know about it and may be talking about it.
2) we use so many asthmatics who may or may not be using their controller meds appropriately
3) it's relevant to the quality of life discussion we had in journal club: is the trade off of 1 cm in adult height worth a better quality of life when using controller meds?

Kelly HW, et al. "Effect of Inhaled Corticosteroids on Adult Height." NEJM. 2012.