Understanding the nature and outcome of childhood wheezing.

The recent study by MATRICARDI et al. [1] from the Multicentre Allergy Study (MAS) cohort provides useful confirmation of existing understanding about the origins of asthma. Thus, they highlight the early roots of much childhood wheeze and the good prognosis of not wheezing in early life. Their confirmation of the heterogeneity of childhood wheeze is also welcome and complements our similar work from the Isle of Wight Birth Cohort [2]. They find common ground too with us on the importance of atopic family history and atopic sensitisation in predicting persistence of wheeze [3] in children with earlyonset wheeze. However, we wish to discuss some of their main findings.