Genetic testing could help identify children with asthma who will face a life-long problem, researchers reveal today.
The tests will not pinpoint with precision children who will not shake off the disease, researchers say.
But they can identify children who are most likely to suffer the problem.
About half of all children with the problem grow out of it in their teenage years.
The findings are reported in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
Researchers combined information about 15 genetic variants linked to asthma and tested them on 880 people, whose asthma had been tracked for 40 years.
Researcher Dr Daniel Belsky, of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA, said the link was not yet precise enough to be used routinely in medicine.
He said: "Although our study revealed that genetic risks can help to predict which childhood-onset asthma cases remit and which become life-course-persistent, genetic risk prediction for asthma is still in its infancy.
"As additional risk genes are discovered, the value of genetic assessments is likely to improve."
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine 28 June 2013 [abstract]
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