Pediatric Pulmonology最新文献

The global health emergency of COVID-19 in early 2020 placed much of the population under quarantine. Interstitial Lung Disease in childhood (chILD) was recommended to be a pediatric clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) group in April 2020 for shielding due to the unknown health consequences of COVID-19 in children with chronic respiratory conditions. This qualitative longitudinal research study explores how chILD parents in the UK experienced COVID-19 lockdown from over two interview time points. Participants (n = 8) were recruited from chILD patient organizations and online communities. Interview one focused on the period between January 2020 to July 2020, gaining personal insight into respondent's experience of lockdowns, which included questions on support systems and media coverage of COVID-19. The second interview enquired how respondents managed further UK lockdowns between September 2020 and May 2021. The main themes were uncertainty and adaptation. Respondents described how they navigated the UK lockdowns and undertook various risk management strategies for pandemic isolation. Once these were established, routine and positive family bonding was reported, along with a reluctant acceptance of the COVID-19 virus and continued shielding. As new COVID-19 information emerged, risk management strategies changed or remained for some respondents, bringing a feeling of living with COVID-19 as a "new normal". (Understanding the unique insights people with rare diseases such as chILD face during a global pandemic adds to policy and healthcare literature. Recommendations include further study of caregiver traits and resilience, essential facets of positive pandemic adaptation.

Objectives: To investigate the clinical implications of the obstructive pattern on plain chest radiography, defined as peribronchial cuffing or hyperinflation, in young children with severe lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs).

Methods: We reviewed all children aged 3‒59 months with LRTIs who underwent radiography and polymerase chain reaction in a Korean emergency department from 2016 through 2020. The radiographs were read as consolidation, peribronchial cuffing, or hyperinflation, with each interrater reliability computed. As per the obstructive pattern, we compared their clinical features, therapeutic interventions, outcomes, and microbiology.

Results: Among 599 children with LRTIs, 465 were enrolled, of whom 98 (21.1%) had consolidation (κ = 0.60; 95% confidence interval, 0.50‒0.70), and 367 (78.9%) had peribronchial cuffing (0.55; 0.46‒0.65) or hyperinflation (0.59; 0.52‒0.67). The obstructive pattern was significantly associated with more frequent wheezing (obstructive, 28.6% vs. consolidation, 10.2%) and the use of inhaled albuterol or systemic steroids (39.0% vs. 23.5%), and lower median values or frequencies of age (22.0 vs. 35.0 months), crackle or diminished breath sound (42.0% vs. 61.2%), C-reactive protein (1.4 vs. 2.9 mg/dL), antibiotic therapy (72.2% vs. 93.9%), length of hospital stay (4.0 vs 5.0 days), fever lasting 3 days or longer (7.9% vs. 29.6%), and complications (0.5% vs. 9.2%). Microbiologically, viruses, such as respiratory syncytial virus, were more frequently detected in children with the obstructive pattern or at a younger age.

Conclusions: This study confirms an association of the obstructive pattern on radiography with viral infection and inflammatory airway obstruction-relieving therapy in young children with severe LRTIs.

Introduction: Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is an autosomal dominant vascular disease and screening to detect pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs) is important to prevent complications. In adults, transthoracic contrast echocardiogram (TTCE) is used to screen PAVMs. In children, a conservative screening method seems to be sufficient to rule out major PAVMs and prevent them from PAVM-related complications. This study reevaluates the conservative noninvasive screening method using a larger cohort of children screened for HHT.

Methods: This single-center observational cohort study includes children screened between December 1998 and December 2022. The screening consisted of medical history, physical examination, pulse oximetry, and chest radiography. Data regarding screening, PAVM presence and complications (including transient ischemic attack, stroke, brain abscess and hemoptysis) were collected using the Dutch HHT-patient database.

Results: In total, 600 children, mean age 9.9 years (SD 4.3) were screened for the presence of PAVMs. None of the 600 children screened suffered any PAVM-related complications after a total of 7102 years of patient follow-up (251 children [42%] with a definite HHT-diagnosis, accounting for 3232 years of follow-up). In 32 patients (13% of children with HHT), a treatable PAVM was found during childhood.

Conclusion: This study confirms that a conservative PAVM screening method in children is safe to prevent complications related to PAVMs. Small PAVMs will be missed using this conservative approach, but without an increased risk of complications.

Background: Indoor allergen exposure and senitization is expected to increase significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of this altered allergen exposure on allergen sensitivity patterns in children with asthma.

Methods: Demographic data, clinical characteristics, and laboratory findings of asthmatic children aged 5 years and younger were assessed May 2019 to May 2020, 1 year after the start of lockdown measures. Those asthmatic children were compared with age- and sex-matched asthmatic peers assessed before the pandemic. Group I included asthmatic children who underwent skin testing within 12 months of the start of the lockdown (n = 112), while Group II included asthmatic children whose skin testing was done before the lockdown (n = 224).

Results: A total of 336 preschool children diagnosed with asthma were evaluated. House dust mite (HDM) and animal dander (cat, dog) senitization rates were significantly higher in Group I than in Group II (66.1% vs. 42.9%; OR: 2.5, 95% CI: 1.6-4.1, p < 0.001 and 8.0% vs. 1.3%; OR: 6.4, CI: 1.7-24.2, p = 0.006, respectively). However, the number of asthma attacks requiring systemic corticosteroid treatment was higher in Group I than in Group II (p = 0.001). The duration of lockdown emerged as a significant risk factor for HDM senitization (p < 0.001, OR: 2.6, 95% CI: 1.6-4.1) and animal allergen senitization (p = 0.006, OR: 6.4, 95% CI: 1.7-27.3).

Conclusion: During the pandemic, senitization to indoor allergens, including HDM and animal dander, increased significantly in asthmatic children. This may be attributed to changes in lifestyle, increased time spent indoors and increased pet ownership.

Introduction: While the diagnosis of cystic fibrosis (CF) is often straightforward and reliant on correlation between genetic testing and clinical signs and symptoms, there is a subset where the distinction is not nearly as clearcut. This has previously been reported in patients identified through newborn screening but not meeting full CF diagnostic criteria, earning the label of CF Screen Positive, Inconclusive Diagnosis (CFSPID) instead. A homologous diagnostic category in adults is named CF Transmembrane Conductance Regulator-Related Disorder (CFTR-RD).

Methods: Through a retrospective chart review, this study reports on a relatively large adult cohort (n = 23) that presented to pulmonology clinic at a single center with intermediate or positive sweat chloride tests but non-diagnostic full CFTR gene analysis.

Results: Median sweat chloride result was 48 mmol/L, and a majority of the cohort had chronic lung disease with atypical pathogens on sputum culture, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, non-tuberculous Mycobacteria, Acinetobacter species, amongst others.

Conclusions: This clinical picture suggests CFTR dysfunction or similar mechanism in the absence of an identified genetic cause. Alternate chloride channels and their respective genes or candidates of genetic modifiers to the CF-phenotype could be targets of further research in this cohort or similar patients. Such genetic modifiers include loci that have been implicated in inflammation, the CFTR interactome, and/or co-/post-translational modification of CFTR.

Background: The 2014 AAP Bronchiolitis Guidelines deimplemented or recommended against the routine therapeutic use of albuterol, hypertonic saline, and epinephrine for infants and children presenting in the outpatient setting. Our objective was to perform an umbrella review of all meta-analyses that included outpatient subanalyses or network meta-analyses with medication treatment comparisons to study the clinical benefits of these deimplemented medications in the outpatient (i.e., primary care, urgent care, and emergency department) setting.

Methods: Searches were performed in the databases PubMed and Scopus and the Web search engine Google Scholar on the following three topics: albuterol and bronchiolitis, epinephrine and bronchiolitis, and hypertonic saline and bronchiolitis. Article types were limited to systematic reviews and meta-analyses with outpatient subanalyses, with English language and age restrictions. The search strategy was based on the Population, Intervention, Comparator, Outcomes, Studies (PICOS) framework. The studies were uploaded to Rayyan, a Web-based platform for managing articles of systematic reviews. Citation tracking and manual review of references were performed for the included studies. The meta-analyses and network meta-analyses were reviewed for outpatient subanalyses focused on clinical responses and risk of hospital admission.

Results: A total of 6 meta-analyses for albuterol, 4 meta-analyses for epinephrine, and 11 meta-analyses for hypertonic saline were included. Our review identified evidence from predominantly low and moderate evidence meta-analyses (assessed using GRADE and AMSTAR 2) indicating that all three deimplemented medications exhibit one or more therapeutic effects and benefits for infants with the bronchiolitis syndrome in the outpatient setting. Effect sizes ranged from medium to near medium. These clinical benefits include decreased hospital admissions and lower clinical severity scores.

Conclusions: Given the heterogeneity of patients under the umbrella term "acute bronchiolitis" and the potential for some patients to respond clinically to albuterol, hypertonic saline, and epinephrine, current evidence supports conducting therapeutic trials in infants with acute bronchiolitis in outpatient settings. However, further well-designed and adequately powered randomized controlled trials and high-quality meta-analyses are still needed.