MEETING ABSTRACT Open Access Preschool wheezing

Pediatricians face many challenges when diagnosing wheezing in preschool children. These diagnostic chal-lenges are compounded by variations in the natural history of early stage asthma, which are not fully understood, since early childhood wheezing and asthma are heterogeneous disorders with many phenotypic and variable expressions. Several risk factors related to genetic, prenatal, and postna-tal environment are associated with preschool wheezing. Findings from cohort studies have shown that preschool children with wheeze have deficits in lung function at 6 years of age that persisted until early and middle adult-hood, suggesting increased susceptibility in the first years of life that might lead to persistent sequelae [1]. Since no standard definition for the type, severity, or fre-quency of symptoms exist for this age group, clear evi