Asthma, Obesity and Post-Operative Pneumonia In Children

Background: Childhood obesity and asthma have reached national epidemic proportions and an increasing number of children requiring anesthesia and surgery would be either obese or asthmatic. Obesity and asthma have a clear proclivity for disturbing pulmonary physiology; and they have both been shown to be risk factors for acute perioperative respiratory adverse events. What is currently unknown is whether the separate or joint presence of obesity and asthma increases the risk of postoperative pneumonia. Our objective was to examine the association of obesity and asthma with postoperative pneumonia in a cohort of children …