CT imaging in children with non-severe asthma and cough-variant asthma: functional spasm or structural remodeling?

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Source: Frontiers Medicine

Original: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2026.1755012...

Published: 2026-03-16T00:00:00Z

The study investigated the bronchial wall thickness and area measured by CT in 140 children: 51 with mild asthma (AS), 50 with cough variant asthma (CVA) and 39 in the control group (CTL) from a Chinese hospital between January 2023 and June 2025. Parameters such as wall area (WA), wall thickness (WT), percentage of wall area (WA%) and percentage of thickness walls (WT%) were measured in specific bronchi (RB1/RB10, LB10) and were significantly higher in AS and CVA groups versus CTL (p < 0.05). There were no differences in age, gender, white blood cell (WBC) or eosinophil count (EOS) between patients (AS + CVA) and controls. Children with asthma or CVA were divided according to lung function into groups with and without small airways dysfunction (SAD) or obstructive ventilatory disorder (OVD). Most CT parameters did not show statistically significant differences between these subgroups. CT results suggest airway remodeling in patients with mild asthma and early-stage CVA. Patients with CVA have a different clinical picture and lung function from classic asthma, but the same pattern of airway remodeling.