Introduction
Exercise is one of the most common factors triggering cough, dyspnea, or
breathing difficulties in otherwise healthy children. This condition is
called exercise-induced bronchoconstriction (EIB), a frequent
phenomenon among early adolescent athletes. Symptoms of EIB include
cough, wheezes, chest tightness, and dyspnea during or after physical
education lessons. The number of adolescents suffering from EIB is
underestimated and many athletes remain undiagnosed and untreated. In
this article we argue that complexity of diagnosing EIB is greater for
adolescent athletes than it is for adults, due to a reduced capacity of
adolescents to feel and understand symptoms. Furthermore, adolescents
experience greater difficulty reporting any such symptoms of EIB to
medical authorities. Chronic exposure to bronchospasm factors may be
associated with the development of asthma. On the other hand, the
beneficial effect of physical effort, especially for children whose
symptoms are well-controlled, permits young people to perform physical
exercises, even at the elite level1.
The purpose of this review is to draw the attention of the medical
community to the problem of EIB and asthma symptoms among adolescent
athletes. In the available sources, most data pertains to professional
adult athletes, so after analyzing the scientific data of the collected
material, the most important issues related to adolescent athletes were
listed.