Current opinion in pediatrics最新文献

Purpose of review: Given the substantial burden of respiratory tract infections (RTIs) on global paediatric health, enhancing our understanding of mucosal immunity can help us advance mucosal biomarkers for diagnosis, prognosis and possible interventions in order to improve health outcomes. This review highlights the critical role of mucosal immunity in paediatric RTIs and recent advances in mucosal interventions, which offer promising strategies to improve outcomes.

Recent findings: The significant burden of paediatric RTIs and growing interest in mucosal immunity advanced our understanding of the role of the respiratory mucosal immune system in protective immunity against RTIs. Studies show that sub-Saharan Africa is disproportionately affected by paediatric RTIs with poverty-associated factors such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and malnutrition as risk factors. Emerging evidence highlights the important role of the respiratory microbiome and mucosal innate and adaptive immune responses in protective immunity against RTIs.

Summary: The growing interest in mucosal immunity in RTIs has not only advanced our understanding of the overall immune responses in RTIs but also created opportunities to improve RTI care through translation of knowledge from these studies into diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines.

Purpose of review: The densely populated Asia Pacific region is home to 600 million children, and suffers from a significant burden of morbidity and mortality due to infections associated with antimicrobial resistance (AMR). We aimed to identify the drivers, challenges and potential opportunities to alter the burden of AMR within the region.

Recent findings: Despite the high AMR burden borne by the Asia Pacific region, there are limited (and geographically imbalanced) published data to delineate the contemporary epidemiology of serious multidrug-resistant bacterial infections in children. Furthermore, the region is impacted by overcrowded and poorly resourced healthcare facilities, insufficient microbiological resources, and widespread community and environmental antibiotic use leading to limited efficacy for frequently prescribed antibiotics. Vaccine coverage is also inadequate and inequitable, further driving the burden of infectious disease (and antibiotic overuse) in children.

Summary of implications: There are many challenges in implementing antimicrobial stewardship and infection prevention and control programs to reduce the excessive AMR disease burden in children across the Asia Pacific region, yet locally-driven strategies have successfully reduced antibiotic overuse in some settings, and should be replicated. Reducing the AMR disease burden will require improved healthcare resourcing, including better access to microbiological diagnosis, and multidisciplinary approaches to enhance infection prevention and antibiotic prescribing.

Purpose of review: This paper reviews options for including community health accountability metrics for child healthcare systems, international and regional experience with such metrics, and some specific candidates for metric consideration.

Recent findings: The inclusion of community metrics in child health accountability systems requires expanded accountability frameworks and re-education of clinicians. Most of the experience with use of community metrics in accountability systems comes from international settings. Lessons learned in these settings include the importance of linking the metrics to various policy and practice implementation measures while balancing the incentives for such 'horizontal' or communitywide indicators with current incentives. The Accountable Communities for Health movement may be the best-known example of US community health indicators for accountability. Four new papers suggest specific child metrics for consideration as child metrics, but only infant mortality rates and high school graduation rates are sufficiently standardized and nationally reported to be useful for such efforts.

Summary: Healthcare accountability for child community health is an important next step, but the coordination with existing accountability systems, data collection systems, and financial incentives require more research to be effective in helping children. Infant mortality rates and high school graduation rates have the most potential as cross system accountability metrics.

Purpose of review: Adoptive immunotherapy brings hope to children and young adults diagnosed with high-risk solid tumors. Cellular (cell) therapies such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell, CAR natural killer (NK) cell, and T cell receptor (TCR) T cell therapy are potential avenues of targeted therapy with limited long-term toxicities. However, development of cell therapies for solid tumors is in its nascent stages. Here, we will review the current clinical experience, barriers to efficacy, and strategies to improve clinical response and patient access.

Recent findings: Cell therapies are shown to be generally safe and well tolerated. Strategies to optimize antitumor activity have now moved into early-phase trials. The immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment remains a major barrier to efficacy, and efforts are underway to gain better understanding. This will inform future treatment strategies to enhance the antitumor activity of cell therapies.

Summary: Clinical experiences to date provide important insights on how to leverage cell therapies against solid tumors. Key factors in advancing the field include a better understanding of immune cell biology, tumor cell behavior, and the tumor microenvironment. Lastly, improving access to novel cell therapies remains an important consideration in the conduct of clinical trials and for future implementation into standard practice.

Purpose of review: To contextualize how pediatrics led the field in developing and implementing tools to screen for social determinants of health in clinical care as well as in creating innovative interventions to mitigate them, and to summarize where the evidence points as the next frontier.

Recent findings: The evidence showed that health-related social needs (HRSN), like food insecurity, energy insecurity, and housing instability, continue to drive poor health outcomes across the lifespan; patients and healthcare providers are open to discussing HRSN in clinical settings, though some providers feel ill-equipped to do so; to mitigate HRSN, healthcare plays a unique role in ensuring patients' HRSN are understood, referring to effective resources through building strong, lasting relationships with community partners, embedding services in the healthcare setting across all departments, and empowering patient families to participate in programs and services; and administrative burden hinders families from getting all the benefits to which they are entitled, which streamlined co-enrollment processes can address.

Summary: Pediatric providers can add a unique and credible voice to seeking changes to the safety-net, including co-enrollment, that could reduce administrative burden, address patients' HRSN, and improve health starting in the prenatal period through later adulthood.

Purpose of review: Pleuropulmonary blastoma (PPB) is a rare primary lung neoplasm of infancy and childhood. The purpose of this review is to highlight recent developments in our understanding of PPB and research strategies to facilitate future rare cancer research.

Recent findings: The International PPB/DICER1 Registry has recently assembled the largest-ever cohorts of type I and Ir PPB and type II and III PPB. These analyses were strengthened by robust histologic, genetic and longitudinal data made possible by systematic data collection and abstraction and dedicated central pathology review. These cohorts have laid the groundwork for a prospective consortium-based clinical trial to assess response to camptothecins in type II and III PPB and standardize the use of chemotherapy in type I PPB.

Summary: Significant strides in the study of PPB have been made through clinical, laboratory and translational research, multidisciplinary collaborations and the generous contributions of patients, families and referring physicians. Ongoing advancements will continue to depend on multidisciplinary, multiperspective global collaborations.

Purpose of review: Food as Medicine (FAM) and supplemental nutrition programs like supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), women, infants, and children (WIC), and school meals aim to combat rising diet-related chronic diseases and healthcare costs by addressing poor diet and food insecurity. However, their effectiveness is limited by a lack of community integration in planning, implementation, and evaluation. We introduce the Food Access, Justice, and Sovereignty (FAJS) framework, which expands FAM efforts to address acute food disparity through community-based strategies grounded in justice and sovereignty.

Recent findings: FAM interventions on adult populations have demonstrated a positive impact on food insecurity and its related chronic illness and shows promise for pediatric populations. However, community-driven solutions are essential for shifting power toward greater integration of the lived experiences of community, which can enhance positive behavioral changes needed for greater prevention and management of chronic illness.

Summary: Using community driven approaches through the lens of access, justice, and sovereignty address the effects of food insecurity and diet-related chronic diseases for adults and pediatric populations. Through the FAJS Framework, interventionalists can develop sustainable nutrition programs that engender community health, control, and lasting impact.

Purpose of review: The review is aimed at practising paediatricians who want to improve their clinical skills in observational gait analysis. Many paediatric complaints relate to problems of walking or limb alignment, and only a small proportion of these are pathological. With a deeper understanding of normal gait and a framework to conduct an observational analysis, the clinician can feel more confident diagnosing and recognizing those walking patterns that need further investigation.

Recent findings: Advances in instrumented gait analysis over the last two decades have provided deeper insights into the mechanisms of walking, how to interpret gait deviations, and their effect on locomotion. This has helped improve the quality of observational gait analysis and, in many ways, defined its limitations.

Summary: This review explains the components of normal gait and provides a structured approach to observational gait analysis. It also discusses the cause of limps and expands upon the importance of understanding rotational deformities. Finally, some tools to enhance the observational analysis are presented.