[Influence of gas and dust air pollutants on development of asthma in children].

Bronchial asthma belongs to a large group of illnesses of allergic and inflammatory origin. Despite long-term studies still not much is known about the factors inducing children's bronchial asthma. This fact influenced the line of the research. The research included 5945 children of 10-11 from 86 primary schools of the Katowice province (presently Silesian province). The factor evaluated was the influence of the exposure to air pollution on asthma induction. The data concerning the exposure was obtained from questionnaires, reports of the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management and medical examinations. The dependence analyses were conducted with the use of statistical packets Statistica and BUGS. The analysis proved that long-term exposure to SO2 caused an increased number of cases of children's asthma (correlation R = 0.95 with p < 0.05), whereas the current concentration of Sos did not correlate with the number of asthmatic children (p > 0.05). The concentration of dust did not correlate with occurrence of asthma (p > 0.05). The exposure to NO2 caused a significant increase in incidence of asthma (R = 0.98 with p < 0.05). Previous exposure to CO did not influence the occurrence of asthma (p < 0.05) whereas its present concentration correlated with the number of cases of children's bronchial asthma (R = 0.918 with p = 0.001). The results obtained point to significant influence of long-term exposure to nitrogen and sulphur oxides on later development of asthma (a comparison between the concentration of these gases in the past and the present state of health). As far as evaluation of the influence of the present pollution concentrations is concerned the results were not so unequivocal (perhaps the duration of exposure has been too short to allow for the development of the illness). The fact that the results of the research are unequivocal points to the necessity to change the evaluation method of the children's exposure to environmental factors. This concerns especially the estimation of gas pollution in the air by measuring the blocmarkers in the organic liquids, and not only by evaluation of the exposure to the factors in the air.