Is immunoglobulin E to Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins associated with asthma at 20 years?

Background: In adults, subjects sensitized to Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins (SE) seem to have an increased risk of asthma, whereas this association is less clear in childhood and adolescence. The primary aim of the present analysis was to examine the association between sensitization to SE and asthma at the age of 20 years.

Methods: The German Multicentre Allergy Study recruited 1314 healthy newborns in 1990. We analyzed data from 61 asthmatics (based on at least two criteria: physician diagnosed asthma ever, wheezing in the last 12 months, asthma medication in the last 12 months) and 122 healthy study participants at age 20. In serum, specific Immunoglobulin E (IgE) to SE and common aeroallergens were measured. The association between asthma at age 20 and sensitization to SE was estimated by logistic regression models considering allergic, socio-demographic, and lifestyle factors as potential confounders.

Results: Fifty-five percent of the included participants were female. At age 20, subjects sensitized to SE were more likely to have asthma than not-sensitized subjects: raw odds ratio (OR) 2.5, 95%-confidence interval (95%CI) [1.3-4.7]; adjusted OR 1.6, 95%CI [0.8-3.4].

Conclusion: Asthmatics at age 20 were more often sensitized to SE compared to controls. Our study may indicate a moderate relationship between SE-sensitization and asthma; however, this association attenuated after adjusting for potential confounders and was no longer statistically significant. Longitudinal investigations with SE-IgE measurements at different time points in larger samples are needed to explore the temporal manner of this relationship.