Résumé
Tobacco is the commonest indoor environmental pollutant to which children-are exposed. Passive smoking, the major source of indoor pollution has been identified as a risk factor for a variety of diseases. Children appear to be particularly vulnerable to passive smoking with increased incidence of wheezing, bronchial hyperreactivity, asthma, atopy, frequent cough, otitis media, persistent ear effusion, snoring and sudden infant death syndrome. The aim of this work was evaluation the relationship of parental smoking and lower chest problems, serum immunoglobulin E and eosinophil count in infants and children in Sharkia Community.This study included 2 main groups. Group I: Consists of 100 children with history of exposure to indoor passive smoking and group II: included 50 children without history of exposure to parental smoking as a control group. Every child in both groups was subjected to general and local chest examination, stool and urine analysis; chest X-ray; urinary cotinine level; absolute eosinophil count and serum IgE. This study showed that passive smoker children had statistically significant increase in urinary cotinine level; serum total IgE; and the frequency of lower respiratory illness than in control group. This increase was more in boys than girls and in children aged less than 2 years than those above 2 years. Also passive smoker children had significant increase in total eosinophil count than controls but there was no difference regarding the sex and age. Lastly there was positive and significant relationship between urinary cotinine level and serum IgE and the frequency of lower respiratory illness. From the above we can conclude that children exposed to environmental tobacco smoke are more vulnerable to health hazards especially lower respiratory illness