Search
Asthma affects > 10% of children in Australia and New Zealand (NZ), with up to 5% of those having severe disease, presenting a management challenge. We aimed to survey tertiary paediatric respiratory services across Australia and NZ using a custom-designed questionnaire, to conduct a cross-sectional observational study of the numbers of children with problematic severe asthma seen, the number treated with biologic therapy, outpatient clinic/multidisciplinary team services available, investigations and tools routinely used and approaches utilised for transition to adult care.
The increasing occurrence of hospital-associated infections, particularly bacteremia, caused by extensively drug-resistant (XDR) carbapenemase-producing colistin-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae highlights a critical requirement to discover new therapeutic alternatives. Bacteriophages having host-specific bacteriolytic effects are promising alternatives for combating these pathogens.
The twenty-first century has seen a fundamental shift in disease epidemiology with anthropogenic environmental change emerging as the likely dominant factor affecting the distribution and severity of current and future human disease. This is especially true of allergic diseases and asthma with their intimate relationship with the natural environment.
The earliest respiratory function assessments, within or close to the neonatal period, consistently show correlations with lung function and with the development of asthma into adulthood. Measurements of lung function in infancy reflect the in utero period of lung development, and if early enough, show little influence of postnatal environmental exposures.
Alcohol consumption in pregnancy can affect genome regulation in the developing offspring but results have been contradictory. We employed a physiologically relevant murine model of short-term moderate prenatal alcohol exposure resembling common patterns of alcohol consumption in pregnancy in humans.