THE RELATIONSHIP OF TUBERCULIN RESPONSES AND ATOPIC DISORDER IN CHINESE CHILDREN

Wong GWK¹, Tam CM³, Leung TF¹, Fok TF¹, Chanyeung M⁴, Lai CKW²

Departments of ¹ Paediatrics and ² Medicine & Therapeutics, Prince of Wales Hospital, Chinese University of Hong Kong ³ Chest Services Central Office, Department of Health ⁴ Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China

Objective: Recent epidemiological and animal studies suggested that BCG vaccination might be beneficial in reducing subsequent development of atopy. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between asthma, allergic symptoms, atopy, and tuberculin response in Chinese schoolchildren who received BCG vaccination at birth.

Methods: In this study, a total of 3110 ten year-old schoolchildren were recruited for the Hong Kong arm of the Phase II International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood. Among the 2599 children born in Hong Kong and vaccinated with BCG after birth, 2201 had tuberculin testing at a mean ± SD age of 8.4±1.4 years. A random sub-sample of 980 children was also recruited for skin-prick test.

Results: The prevalence rates of asthma ever, wheeze ever, current wheeze, current rhinoconjunctivitis and current flexural eczema were not significantly different between tuberculin positive and negative subjects. The mean ± SEM tuberculin response was 3.4±0.2 mm in atopic subjects and 3.3±0.2 mm in nonatopic subjects. The difference was not significant (P=0.9). Logistic regression analyses did not reveal any significant relationship between asthma ever, current wheeze, atopy, and positive tuberculin responses.

Conclusions: This study did not find any relationship between asthma, allergic symptoms, atopy, and positive tuberculin reactivity in Chinese schoolchildren who were vaccinated with BCG at birth.

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