Objective: To evaluate criteria for the diagnosis of asthma in an epidemiological survey. Methods: Adolescents (13-14 years of age) and legal guardians of schoolchildren (6-7 years of age) in the city of Santo André, Brazil, completed the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) standard written questionnaire. Affirmative responses regarding wheezing within the last 12 months, asthma ever, bronchitis ever (question added at the end of the questionnaire), as well as the overall ISAAC score above the predefined cutoff points, were considered indicative of asthma. Results: The legal guardians of 2,180 schoolchildren and 3,231 adolescents completed the questionnaires properly. Depending on the criterion adopted, the prevalence of asthma ranged from 4.9% to 26.8% for the schoolchildren and from 8.9% to 27.9% for the adolescents. The criteria with the lowest and highest prevalences were, respectively, physician-diagnosed asthma and physician-diagnosed bronchitis. When compared with other criteria, physician-diagnosed bronchitis showed concordance levels between 71.9% and 79.4%, positive predictive values between 0.16 and 0.63 and poor concordance (kappa: 0.21-0.46). Strong concordance levels were found only between wheezing within the last 12 months and the overall ISAAC score (kappa: 0.82 and 0.98). Conclusions: The prevalence of asthma varied significantly, depending on the criterion adopted, and there was poor concordance among the criteria. Wheezing within the last 12 months and the overall ISAAC score are the best criteria for the diagnosis of asthma, whereas the question regarding bronchitis ever did not improve the questionnaire. Modifications in this instrument can make it difficult to draw comparisons and should therefore be carefully evaluated.

Keywords: Asthma; Bronchitis; Diagnosis; Epidemiology; Child; Adolescent.

Objective: To validate, for use in asthma prevalence studies, the asthma module of the standardized written questionnaire developed for use in the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood, establishing the score and cut-off point that would identify asthmatic adults. Methods: We interviewed 78 adult outpatients (40 adult asthmatics and 38 age-matched and gender-matched controls) using the asthma module of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood questionnaire, which is composed of questions related to eight dichotomous features of asthma. We determined the score and cut-off point required to accurately identify asthmatic adults, calculating sensitivity, specificity and Youden index. The method was validated against the clinical and functional diagnosis of asthma. The reproducibility of individual questions was evaluated by conducting second interviews with half of the patients some weeks later. Results: The score ranged from 0 to 14 points. A score = 5 allowed patients with asthma to be distinguished from those without (sensitivity = 93%; specificity = 100%; Youden index = 0.93). Most questions presented satisfactory reproducibility in the second interviews conducted after 48.2 ± 11.1 days (kappa and weighted kappa ranging from 0.43 to 1.00 for individual questions). Conclusion: For studies of adult asthma prevalence, the determination/validation of a cut-off point allows an alternative interpretation of the information gathered through the application of the asthma module of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood, taking into account the totality of the data rather than responses to individual questions.

Keywords: Asthma/diagnosis; Asthma/epidemiology; International cooperation; Questionnaires

Objective: To evaluate whether the Portuguese version of the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) is a valid instrument to measure asthma control in adult outpatients in Brazil. Methods: We selected 278 outpatients diagnosed with asthma. All of the patients completed the questionnaire, underwent spirometry and were clinically evaluated by a physician in order to characterize the control of the disease in the first visit. The questionnaire was evaluated in three versions, with 5, 6 and 7 questions, respectively, and scores of 0.75 and 1.50 were used as cut-off points. Results: Of the 278 patients, 77 (27.7%) had intermittent asthma, 39 (14.0%) had mild persistent asthma, 40 (14.4%) had moderate persistent asthma and 122 (43.9%) had severe persistent asthma. The sensitivity of ACQ to identify uncontrolled asthma ranged from 77% to 99%, and the specificity ranged from 36% to 84%. The positive predictive value ranged from 73% to 90%, and the negative predictive value ranged from 67% to 95%. The positive likelihood ratio ranged from 1.55 to 4.81, and the negative likelihood ratio ranged from 0.03 to 0.27. In the 5- and 6-question versions of the ACQ, the intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.92. These two versions were both responsive to clinical changes in the patients. Conclusions: All three versions of the ACQ satisfactorily discriminated between patients with uncontrolled asthma and those with controlled asthma. The 5- and 6-question versions also presented good reliability and responsiveness. Therefore, the ACQ is a valid tool for evaluating asthma control in adult outpatients in Brazil.

Keywords: Asthma; Therapeutics; Diagnosis; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of results.

Objective: To evaluate the capacity of the criteria described in Complementary Directive SAS/MS 12, issued on November 12, 2002, to identify patients with severe asthma, describing and comparing clinical, functional and treatment data of such patients. Methods: This was a nested case-control study using a structured database for adult asthma outpatients. We defined cases as asthma patients who met the inclusion criteria described in the directive, defining controls as those who did not. We collected and compared data related to the following: demographic characteristics; history of asthma; medications in use; comorbidities; history of tobacco use; number of exacerbations within the last 12 months, asthma-related hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions within the last 12 months; spirometry; and sputum cytology. Results: The case and control groups consisted of 29 and 31 patients, respectively. The number of asthma exacerbations and emergency room visits within the last 12 months, as well as the number of patients that received at least one pulse of oral corticosteroids, was significantly higher in the case group than in the control group. In addition, prebronchodilator FVC was lower among the cases than among the controls. Furthermore, cytology revealed that eosinophil counts were significantly higher in the induced sputum of cases than in that of controls. Conclusions: The criteria described in the directive are suited to stratifying patients with severe asthma.

Keywords: Asthma; Budesonide; Combined modality therapy.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of bronchial asthma among university hospital employees between the ages of 20 and 44 based on the criteria established in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey. Methods: A descriptive, prospective, randomized, stratified prevalence study was conducted, in which questionnaires completed between April and October of 2002 by 351 employees of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Federal University at Pernambuco) Hospital das Clínicas were evaluated. For sample characterization, the independent variables used were the signs and symptoms of asthma, and one dependent variable (physician-diagnosed asthma, characterized by data related to attacks occurring within the 12 months preceding the study) was included. Results: The prevalence of asthma was 10.7%. Nocturnal dyspnea, chest tightness and nocturnal cough were the most frequent symptoms, although statistically significant correlations with asthma were found exclusively among females (p = 0.03, p = 0.04 and p = 0.001, respectively). Nocturnal dyspnea, wheezing within the last 12 months, dyspnea with wheezing and the use of asthma medication were more frequent among individuals between 20 and 29 years of age. The last two variables presented statistical significance (p < 0.001). Undertreatment of asthma was identified in 35 (10.7%) of the cases. Conclusions: The results of this pioneering study show that asthma prevalence in a sample composed of employees of a university hospital located in a developing country was slightly higher than that found in the literature and suggest that working in a university hospital does not reduce the frequency of undertreatment.

Keywords: Asthma/diagnosis; Asthma/epidemiology; Hospitals, university; Questionnnaires

Objective: To develop and validate an asthma knowledge questionnaire for use in adult asthma patients in Brazil. Methods: A 34-item self-report questionnaire was constructed and administered to adult asthma patients and adult controls. The maximum total score was 34. Results: The questionnaire was shown to be discriminatory, with good reliability and reproducibility. The mean score for asthma patients and controls was, respectively, 21.47 ± 4.11 (range: 9-31) and 17.27 ± 5.11 (range: 7-28; p < 0.001). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was 0.53, and the Bartlett's test of sphericity demonstrated a satisfactory suitability of the data to factor analysis (p < 0.001). There was no significant difference between the total scores obtained in the first and in the second application of the questionnaire within a two-week interval (p = 0.43). The internal consistency reliability (KR-20 coefficient) was 0.69. Conclusions: This study has validated an asthma knowledge questionnaire for use in Brazil.

Keywords: Asthma; Questionnaires; Validation studies; Reproducibility of results.

Occupational lung diseases represent an important and serious public health problem. In order to contribute to the knowledge of the risks associated with the exposure to fertilizer production an environmental and epidemiological cross-sectional study was performed among workers of this industry in Rio Grande, RS, Brazil. The ATS-DLD-78 questionnaire was applied, a thoracic radiological study was carried out, and the pulmonary function testing was evaluated through spirometry in 413 employees, 305 being the exposed group and 108 the non-exposed group. The exposed workers were all men, 74.1% had attended elementary school (at least some years), mean age was 38 (± 7.6) and mean time of exposure was 11.8 years (± 6.7). As to cigarette smoking, 126 (41.3%) were smokers, 76 (24.9%) former smokers, and 103 (33.8%) non-smokers. The exposed group was divided into four work sections according to the specific risks of their occupational exposure. The environmental evaluation showed the presence of free silica, gaseous fluorides, and gaseous ammonia in concentrations above the tolerance limits. Results of the exposed workers were: 30.5% of them answered positively to cough, 14.7% to chronic cough, 8.5% to chronic bronchitis, 43.3% to rhinitis, and 35.4% to conjunctivitis. The multivariate analysis, after adjustment for smoking, showed statistically significant association between exposure and cough as a whole, rhinitis and conjunctivitis. The thoracic radiological studies did not point to any considerable abnormality of pneumoconiosis in the exposed workers. Most of them presented normal pulmonary function testing, not different from the controls.

Keywords: Epidemiology. Lung diseases. Respiratory tract diseases. Occupational diseases. Fertilizer industry. Evaluation. Environment.

Objective: To assess the prevalences of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in adolescents in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in 2012 by administering the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) questionnaire, as well as to compare the observed prevalences with those found in studies performed 10 years earlier and employing the same methodology used here. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted between May and December of 2012 and involving adolescents in the 13- to 14-year age bracket. Participants were randomly selected from among adolescents studying at public schools in Belo Horizonte and completed the ISAAC questionnaire. Proportions were calculated in order to assess the prevalences of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in the sample as a whole, and the chi-square goodness-of-fit test was used in order to compare the prevalences observed in 2012 with those found in 2002. Results: The prevalences of symptoms of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis in 2012 were 19.8%, 35.3%, and 16.3%, respectively, being significantly higher than those found in 2002 (asthma, p = 0.006; allergic rhinitis, p < 0.01; and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, p = 0.002). Conclusions: The prevalences of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and allergic rhinoconjunctivitis among adolescents in 2012 were found to be high, having increased in comparison with those found 10 years earlier, despite efforts in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Keywords: Asthma; Rhinitis, allergic; Prevalence; Adolescent.

Our objective was to evaluate the reproducibility of Asthma Control Questionnaire 7 (ACQ-7) in asthma patients, comparing our results against those obtained with the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) criteria. We evaluated 52 patients. Patients completed the ACQ-7, underwent spirometry, and were clinically assessed to determine the level of asthma control according to the GINA criteria, in two visits, 15 days apart. The ACQ-7 cutoff for uncontrolled asthma was a score of 1.5. The ACQ-7 showed good reproducibility, with a correlation coefficient of 0.73. The ACQ-7 identified a greater number of patients with uncontrolled asthma than did the GINA criteria; according to the GINA criteria, 47 patients (90.4%) presented with partially controlled asthma.

Keywords: Asthma/prevention and control; Asthma/classification; Questionnaires.

Introduction: The University Hospital is reference in the city of Rio Grande, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Southeast part of Brazil, for chronic lung disease patients, with a major smoking cessation program. Aim: The purpose of this work was to analyze the utilization of Fagerström Tolerance Questionnaire to assess the nicotine dependence of smoking patients with reference to individualization of treatment. Material and Method: The authors used the Fagerström Tolerance Questionnaire (FTQ) in daily smoking adult patients from the Medical Clinic and Chest Medicine Units of the University Hospital and Rio Grande Santa Casa Hospital, during the period of one year. Three hundred and one valid questionnaires were filled out, 40.5% by females and 59.5% by males. Mean age was 48.6 years. The score of the questionnaires classified patients by dependence into five degrees: very low, low, medium, high, and very high. Results: 54.9% belong to the group of high nicotine dependence (score ³ 6), with a significant correlation of elevated nicotine dependence and cigarettes per day or time to the first cigarette of the day (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The use of the FTQ demonstrated ease of administration and more than 50% of the patients with a degree of chemical dependence that anticipate discomfort at cessation of smoking and need of treatment to control the withdrawal symptoms.

Setting: Considering the difficulty to establish diagnosis of tuberculosis in childhood, the authors studied three diagnostic criteria published in the literature in the last 20 years, evaluating their sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Material and methods: In a prospective study, 94 children at ages ranging from 0 to 15 years having contact with bacillary tuberculous adults were studied in the Municipal Health Center of Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro. The following criteria were studied: Keneth Jones, described by Stegen et al.(1), World Health Organization(2) and Keith Edwards, described by Crofton et al.(3). Results: Among the criteria studied, those of Keith Edwards showed the best sensitivity and specificity, with 84% and 97%, respectively. WHO criterion showed a 100% specificity but zero sensitivity. Keneth Jones criterion showed 56% sensitivity and a 94% specificity. Conclusion: In poor areas, such as that of this study, where easy-to-handle operational methods are required, the criteria studied proved to be adequate to detect tuberculosis cases in children in contact with tuberculous adults. Those of Keith Edwards were the most useful although some changes are necessary for a better adaptation to Brazil.

Keywords: Tuberculosis, diagnosis. Child. Community health care centers.

Objective: To assess the psychometric properties of the official Brazilian Portuguese-language version of the Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) in a representative group of Brazilian children and adolescents with asthma. Methods: A total of 125 individuals with asthma, aged 8-17 years and being monitored at a pediatric pulmonology outpatient clinic in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, completed the PAQLQ. Validity was assessed by means of convergent validity (correlation between PAQLQ domains and those of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) 4.0. Reliability was assessed by determining internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient), reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient), sensitivity to change (effect size), and discriminatory power (floor/ceiling effects). Results: The mean age was 11 years, and 75 (60%) of the participants were male. The mean PAQLQ total score was 5.1, with floor/ceiling effects < 10%. Correlations between PAQLQ domains and the PedsQL 4.0 domains were acceptable (r = 0.37-0.40). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the total score was 0.93, ranging from 0.72 to 0.88 for the domains. The overall effect size was 0.60 (range: 0.45-0.60), whereas the overall intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.80 (range: 0.66-0.79). Conclusions: The official Brazilian Portuguese-language version of the PAQLQ showed good psychometric performance, confirming its cultural adequacy for use in Brazil.

Keywords: Keywords: Quality of life; Asthma; Validation studies.

Objectives: This study describes the epidemiological profile of cases of repeated treatment of tuberculosis occurring among residents of the city of Recife in the year of 1997. Material and methods: A cross-sectional study was performed and 240 cases of repeated treatment were studied, representing 16.2% of all cases of tuberculosis. Results: Interruption of previous treatment was the principal reason for repeated treatments (55.8%), followed by cases of recurrence of the disease (39.2%). Patients undergoing repeated treatment for tuberculosis are characterized as predominantly male, ages between 30 and 49, with little or no school education, with a significant predominance of pulmonary tuberculosis. It is striking that 42.7% of the cases of repeated treatment had a history of two or more previous courses of treatment. With regard to the outcome of the repeated treatment, 52.5% of the cases showed unfavorable results. Among these, 44.2% of the patients gave up the course of treatment and 39.6% followed it for the first month. The cases that returned for treatment following recurrence showed a higher percentage of successful outcomes (56.7%), in comparison to those that returned after interrupting previous treatment (40.2%), this difference being statistically significant (χ2 = 19,55; p < 0,01). It was found that, among the cases of pulmonary tuberculosis, 27.1% resumed chemotherapy without undergoing the Koch bacillus catarrh test and only 27.1% carried out BK culture with sensitivity test. Conclusions: The results show the need to enhance tuberculosis treatment and follow-up procedures within the sphere of the health care service. An adequate treatment is the cheapest method to avoid drug resistance and should be understood as a strategy to improve the tuberculosis surveillance system.

Keywords: Tuberculosis. Pulmonary tuberculosis. Repeated treatment.

Objective: To evaluate confirmed cases of lung cancer, reviewing epidemiological variables, clinical variables, staging and treatment. Methods: The cases of 263 patients were studied. All of the patients had been treated at the Universidade Federal do Paraná (Federal University of Paraná) Hospital de Clínicas or at the Hospital Erasto Gaertner, two institutions that, together, serve a significant portion of the patients seeking treatment in the city of Curitiba, located in the state of Paraná. This was a retrospective study, involving the administration of questionnaires. The descriptive analysis of the data obtained was performed using the Epi-Info program. Results: There was a predominance of male patients (76%). At the time of diagnosis, the majority of patients (90%) were smokers or former smokers. In 87% of the cases, there was no history of lung disease. The most common initial symptoms were cough (142 cases) and chest pain (92 cases). Non-small cell lung cancer was found in 87% of the patients, and the most common histological type was spinocellular carcinoma, which was found in 49% of all of the patients. Smoking was found to be the most significant predisposing factor. Conclusion: The characteristics of lung cancer progression, such as the nonspecificity of the initial symptoms, the duration of tumor growth and the course of the tumor, together with the lack of tracking programs, are the principal factors that hinder the early detection of lung cancer, making it difficult to treat lung cancer patients and to increase their survival.

Keywords: Lung neoplasms/diagnosis; Lung neoplasms/epidemiology; Lung neoplasms/surgery; Early diagnosis; Neoplasms staging

Objective: To predict COVID-19 in hospitalized patients with SARS in a city in southern Brazil by using machine learning algorithms. Methods: The study sample consisted of patients = 18 years of age admitted to the emergency department with SARS and hospitalized in the Hospital Escola - Universidade Federal de Pelotas between March and December of 2020. Epidemiological, clinical, and laboratory data were processed by machine learning algorithms in order to identify patterns. Mean AUC values were calculated for each combination of model and oversampling/undersampling techniques during cross-validation. Results: Of a total of 100 hospitalized patients with SARS, 78 had information for RT-PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection and were therefore included in the analysis. Most (58%) of the patients were female, and the mean age was 61.4 ± 15.8 years. Regarding the machine learning models, the random forest model had a slightly higher median performance when compared with the other models tested and was therefore adopted. The most important features to diagnose COVID-19 were leukocyte count, PaCO2, troponin levels, duration of symptoms in days, platelet count, multimorbidity, presence of band forms, urea levels, age, and D-dimer levels, with an AUC of 87%. Conclusions: Artificial intelligence techniques represent an efficient strategy to identify patients with high clinical suspicion, particularly in situations in which health care systems face intense strain, such as in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19/diagnosis; Artificial intelligence; Machine learning.

Objective: To evaluate the understanding of asthma and the clinical improvement in patients with moderate or severe persistent asthma prior to and after their participation in an educational program presented during the routine outpatient visits. Methods: This was a prospective pilot study involving 164 patients over a two-year period. The educational program, presented to small groups on outpatient visit days, consisted of lectures divided into three parts: pathophysiology; environmental control; and treatment, including training in the inhalation technique. The program was evaluated using standardized questionnaires on clinical improvement and understanding of the disease. Results: By the end of the first year, 120 patients had completed three visits, and 51 of those patients were revaluated at the end of the second year. The mean age of the patients was 44 years, 70% were female, and 43% had up to eight years of schooling. The educational intervention significantly increased the understanding of the disease (p < 0.001), and allowed greater clinical improvement (p < 0.05) with a decrease in the use of oral corticosteroids, fewer visits to the emergency room and fewer days missed from work or school. Conclusions: The educational program offered during the routine outpatient visits of adult patients with asthma at our clinic resulted in a progressive long-term increase in knowledge, as well as in clinical improvement.

Keywords: Asthma; Adult; Patient education as topic.

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics of preterm infants with different severities of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) and disclose the high-risk factors of exacerbating BPD. Methods: Collection of clinical data of 91 preterm infants admitted to the NICU and diagnosed with BPD, categorized in groups according to the disease severity: 41 mild cases,, 24 moderate cases, and 26 severe cases. Comparison and analysis of perinatal risk factors, treatment, complications and prognosis of the infants with different severity degrees. Results: The severe group had a higher proportion of infants with congenital heart disease (CHD) higher than the moderate group (P < 0.05), and a higher ratio of pneumonia and mechanical ventilation (MV) = seven days than the mild group (P < 0.05). The severe group also presented higher reintubation incidence than both the mild and moderate groups (P < 0.05). The groups presented different (P < 0.05) incidence rates of hemodynamically significant patent ductus arteriosus (hsPDA) . Ridit analysis suggested that the premature infants (PIs) with hsPDA, multiple microbial pulmonary infections, or Klebsiella pneumoniae pneumonia had more severe illness. Conclusion: CHD, hsPDA, MV = seven days, reintubation, pneumonia, especially multiple microbial pulmonary infections, and Klebsiella pneumoniae pneumonia are correlated with the severity of BPD and can be used as BPD progression predictor.

Keywords: BPD; Preterm infant; CHD; hsPDA;, Pneumonia; Mechanical ventilation