byRegenstrief Institute

Kaplan–Meier plot of time to incident severe exacerbation 12-months after the sleep study. Credit:Pediatric Allergy and Immunology(2025). DOI: 10.1111/pai.70229

About 30 to 40% of children with asthma experience sleep difficulties due to symptoms like coughing and wheezing. Poor sleep increases the risk of severe asthma exacerbations (attacks) that often necessitate a hospitalization or emergency department admission, causing a significant burden to the patient/caregivers and health care system. However, there is a paucity of research on practical ways of identifying children with asthma and sleep problems at increased risk of such severe asthma attacks who could benefit from targeted preventive intervention.

In a newstudypublished inPediatric Allergy and Immunology, researchers found that in addition to having a history of severe asthma attacks, children with asthma, particularly boys, who had fragmented sleep, were at greater risk for severe asthma attacks. Conversely, a history of sleep disturbance treatment (medications) was associated with a lower risk of future severe asthma attacks.

By incorporating easily accessible medical health record data and sleep study data, the researchers created a prognostic model that had higher accuracy for early identification of children at risk of severe asthma attacks than reliance on history of severe asthma attacks alone (approximately a proxy of current clinical practice).

Among children with asthma and sleep-related problems, providers can explore referral of such patients for sleep studies to aid efforts toward early identification of at-risk children who might benefit from preventive sleep-related interventions to reduce risk of future asthma attacks.

Going forward, the researchers plan to examine the prognostic utility of combining electronic health record data, sleep parameters and sleep microstructure data to further improve the clinical accuracy and utility of our prognostic algorithms for early identification of children at risk of severe asthma attacks. The team will also evaluate the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of various sleep-related medications identified in the study as a preventive strategy to reduce the risk of severeasthmaattacks among at-risk patients.

More information: Anuja Bandyopadhyay et al, Predictive correlates of poor sleep associated with increased risk of severe asthma exacerbations among children with moderate‐to‐severe asthma, Pediatric Allergy and Immunology (2025). DOI: 10.1111/pai.70229

Provided by Regenstrief Institute