A longitudinal study of nasal airway size from age 9 to age 13.

In order to define nasal breathing for diagnostic purposes, reference values of normal nasal airway size in children are needed. The purpose of this study was to examine longitudinally changes in nasal airway size that occur with age. Minimum nasal cross-sectional areas of 82 children were measured by the pressure-flow technique at 1-year intervals, from age 9 through age 13. A mixed factorial ANOVA showed that the effect of age on nasal airway size was statistically significant (p<0.001) and the effect of gender was nonsignificant. Although the mean nasal size increased from 0.4 cm2 to 0.5 cm2, it also decreased at some point between 9 and 13 years. The results suggest that the adult nasal size may be reached earlier than previously reported in cross-sectional studies.