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

In order to define nasal breathing for diagnostic purposes, reference value s of normal nasal airway size in children are needed. The purpose of this s tudy 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 s ize was statistically significant (p < 0.001) and the effect of gender was nonsignificant. Although the mean nasal size increased from 0.4 cm(2) to 0. 5 cm(2) 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 r eported in cross-sectional studies.