Autism linked to abnormal lung shape

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Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Lung Abnormalities in Children with Autism?
I have no idea what the significance of this could or would be but a presentation at CHEST 2011 suggests that children with autism might have a strange abnormality in their lungs. From a summary of the finding in U.S. News & World report -

In a typical lung, the windpipe, or trachea, branches into two main stems. From there, airways branch off the stems much like tree branches in a random, asymmetrical pattern, said Stewart, a pediatric pulmonologist at Nemours Children's Clinic in Pensacola, Fla.

But in the autistic children, those branches were instead doubled up and symmetrical. And the branches were smaller -- whereas in a normal lung you might have one large branch jutting off, in the autistic child, she'd see two, smaller branches instead.

The abstract of the presentation is below.

Can Bronchoscopic Airway Anatomy Be an Indicator of Autism?
Barbara Stewart, MD
Nemours Childrens Clinic, Pensacola, FL

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to investigate possible correlation between certain airway anamolies and a definitive diagnosis of autism and/or autistic spectrum disorder.

METHODS: IRB approval was obtained for a restrospective study to evaluate 49 patients with a diagnosis of autism or autistic spectrum disorder. These patients were seen in the pulmonary clinic with a diagnosis of cough that was unresponsive to therapy and who required further pulmonary work-up. Bronchoscopic evaluation of the airway was included as part of that work-up.

RESULTS: Bronchoscopic evaluations revealed the presence of initial normal anatomy followed by double take-offs in the lower airway (or "doublets") in 100% of the autistic population studied.

CONCLUSIONS: There appears to be a correlation between autistic spectrum disorder and airway anatomy. This is a small study of 49 patients. More investigation is warranted.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: At present autism is diagnosed through subjective observation of "autistic behaviors." Autistic children with cough may be diagnosed objectively.

DISCLOSURE: The following authors have nothing to disclose: Barbara Stewart, Barbara Stewart

No Product/Research Disclosure Information

*Bangs his head against a wall, repeatedly*

I think that this is actually an interesting point, given that there is a conversation currently happening here on the "general discussion" board re: abnormal breathing patterns. Makes me wonder if there's a possible correlation.

I suppose we should hold back the DSM5 changes, so we can change the criteria for ASD to: "Has double take-offs in the lower airway". Of course, most people reading that will be thinking of aircraft traffic controllers and the like ...

OK, another physical trait I don't have.

I find this one really interesting. The fact that they can't give a variance because of having 100% correlation, even at just small sample sizes, is impressive.




Have you actually had someone stick tubes down your throat into your lungs to look in them? This isn't exactly a visible trait from the outside of your body, and isn't a regularly tested trait.

Quite, don't take this study too seriously. It's a single limited self-selected sample. We can only see the abstract, but there Is no control group.

I don't know if this is the same "study" (in that case it wasn't formalized as a study, it was someone having found the pattern when she wasn't looking for it, in her work) as before. She noticed after 10 years of doing these tests on kids that some of the lungs looked different than others, and then noticed the lungs that looked different were in autistic kids, so she went back and looked at her old data and it continued having the same pattern.

If so, there were about 300 NT kids along with the autistic kids, and there remained a 100% correlation.

Every kid who was autistic had these doublets.

No kid who was NT had these doublets.