BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Corticosteroid therapy is one of the main treatments for asthma and considering the effects of corticosteroid on bone mineral density, the present study was conducted to analyze the bone mineral density in children with asthma treated with inhaled corticosteroids.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 62 children 6 to 14 years old with moderate or severe asthma admitted to Amirkola Children's Hospital, whose disease have lasted for at least one year and were treated with inhaled corticosteroids. DEXA method was used to measure bone density using Hologic QDR4500 device. Based on this method, the lumbar spine and the femur neck was examined and Z-Score criteria was recorded for each patients. In addition to the above-mentioned information, the dosage, duration of consumption and duration of the disease was also recorded for each patients.

FINDINGS: The mean age of children was 7.8 ± 2.1, among which 33 children (53.2%) were boys. The mean duration of asthma was 2.3 years and the mean forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) was 77.3±5.4% in patients. Osteopenia was observed in 5 patients (CI-95%=1–15, 8.1%). There was no significant difference between osteopenia and gender, duration of consumption and age. However, there was a significant difference between osteopenia and the dosage of the drug (p=0.007).

CONCLUSION: Osteopenia was observed in a considerable percentage of children with asthma who were treated with fluticasone spray for more than one year, which was also affected by drug dosage