Swiss Pediatric Airway Cohort (SPAC)
Claudia Kuehni, Cristina Ardura-Garcia, Christina Mallet, Eva Pedersen, Myrofora Goutaki
The SPAC is a prospective clinical cohort study with a national multicentre set-up. The study includes children aged 0-16 years who are referred to a respiratory outpatient clinic for wheeze, recurrent cough, exercise- and sleep-related respiratory problems, or other nonspecific respiratory symptoms. It collects data on symptoms, health behaviour and environmental exposures through parental questionnaires and extracts medical data from outpatient hospital records. This includes clinical test results (e.g., lung function, allergy tests) and information on treatment and diagnosis. Patient recruitment began in 2017 and currently includes over 2500 children from pulmonary outpatient clinics in Aarau, Basel, Bern, Chur, Horgen, Lausanne, Luzern, St. Gallen, Worb and Zurich, and from Vienna, Austria. SPAC aims to describe the spectrum of respiratory symptoms and problems, to document diagnostic practices, treatments, and preventive measures prescribed in the clinics, and to study long-term outcomes. The project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF 320030_182628).