Search results for "Asthma"
showing 10 items of 860 documents
Serum eosinophil cationic protein as a potential biomarker for interleukin-5 antibody treatment in patients with severe uncontrolled eosinophilic ast…
2018
Serum eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) has been described as a marker reflecting activation of eosinophils in asthma, potentially correlating to airway inflammation. Our aim was to examine the role of serum ECP to predict treatment efficacy in asthmatics starting interleukin-5 antibody (anti-IL5) therapy. We evaluated 65 patients with severe, uncontrolled eosinophilic asthma (≥300 eosinophils per µl blood) before and approx. 4 months after initiation of anti-IL5 therapy with mepolizumab; 35 patients completed a 12 month follow-up. Evaluation of treatment efficacy included medical history, asthma questionnaires, physical examination, spirometry, exhaled NO and blood tests. Depending on the …
Asthma control, severity and lung function impairment through network analysis in children
2015
Background: Achieving and maintaining asthma control in children is the primary goal recommended by current guidelines. Aim: To identify risk factors associated with Asthma control and severity, as well as their relative weight. Methods: Within a consecutive series of outpatients visited in a three years period at the IBIM pediatric clinic, we selected 128 persistent asthmatics. A standardized medical interview was carried out to collect information on environmental risk factors, symptoms and comorbidities. Spirometry was performed using Pony FX, Cosmed, Italy; spirometric values were expressed as %pred using GLI-2012equation. Statistical analyses were performed by using R. Results: The ide…
A 15-Year-Old Boy with Anterior Chest Pain, Progressive Dyspnea, and Subcutaneous Emphysema of the Neck
2009
We describe the case of an adolescent who was admitted to the hospital because of sudden occurrence of chest pain, dyspnea and subcutaneous emphysema. On admission, physical examination revealed subcutaneous crepitations in the superior part of the rib cage, and auscultation of the chest showed widespread wheezing. The radiological assessment confirmed the diagnosis of pneumomediastinum and pneumothorax. A follow-up CT scan performed one week after the admission showed almost complete resolution of the radiological alterations. At the following visits, the patient was asymptomatic, but reported to have suffered from frequent episodes of rhinorrea, sneezing, nasal blockage, and sometimes, ch…
Measuring lung function in asthmatic children: A spirometry and forced oscillation technique (FOT) comparison
2016
Background: Spirometry is the most common pulmonary function test used in asthma diagnosing. However, it requires good patient co-operation. FOT has gained increasing attention for the measurement of pulmonary function in children because it is performed at steady state breathing. Aim: To compare spirometry and FOT in order to discriminate severity of asthma according to GINA. Methods: Spirometry and FOT were performed in 176 out-patient asthmatic children (5-16 year), 100 (57%) with naive Persistent Asthma (PA) and 76 (43%) with Intermittent Asthma (IA), consecutively enrolled at the IBIM pediatric clinic. Two principal component analyses (PCA) were performed, the first (PCA1) based on FEV…
The Induced Smoothed lasso: A practical framework for hypothesis testing in high dimensional regression.
2020
This paper focuses on hypothesis testing in lasso regression, when one is interested in judging statistical significance for the regression coefficients in the regression equation involving a lot of covariates. To get reliable p-values, we propose a new lasso-type estimator relying on the idea of induced smoothing which allows to obtain appropriate covariance matrix and Wald statistic relatively easily. Some simulation experiments reveal that our approach exhibits good performance when contrasted with the recent inferential tools in the lasso framework. Two real data analyses are presented to illustrate the proposed framework in practice.
Safety of sublingual immunotherapy started during the pollen season
2009
Sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT) is safer than subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT) and this has lead to the reconsideration of the use of ultra-rush schedules for SLIT. The aim of this study was to assess the safety of ultra-rush SLIT in pollen-allergic children according to different timing of administration in relation to the pollen season.In total, 34 children with pollen-induced rhinitis and 36 with pollen-induced asthma and rhinitis, were enrolled and assigned to three study groups: group 1 (n = 17 patients): conventional pre-seasonal-SLIT treatment; group 2 (n = 23 patients), seasonal SLIT ended before the pollen seasonal peak; group 3 (n = 30 patients), SLIT began after the pollen seaso…
Development of spontaneous airway changes consistent with human asthma in mice lacking T-bet.
2002
Human asthma is associated with airway infiltration by T helper 2 (TH2) lymphocytes. We observed reduced expression of the TH1 transcription factor, T-bet, in T cells from airways of patients with asthma compared with that in T cells from airways of nonasthmatic patients, suggesting that loss of T-bet might be associated with asthma. Mice with a targeted deletion of the T-bet gene and severe combined immunodeficient mice receiving CD4+cells from T-bet knockout mice spontaneously demonstrated multiple physiological and inflammatory features characteristic of asthma. Thus, T-bet deficiency, in the absence of allergen exposure, induces a murine phenotype reminiscent of both acute and chronic h…
Extracellular vesicles in airway homeostasis and pathophysiology
2021
The epithelial–mesenchymal trophic unit (EMTU) is a morphofunctional entity involved in the maintenance of the homeostasis of airways as well as in the pathogenesis of several diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The “muco-microbiotic layer” (MML) is the innermost layer of airways made by microbiota elements (bacteria, viruses, archaea and fungi) and the surrounding mucous matrix. The MML homeostasis is also crucial for maintaining the healthy status of organs and its alteration is at the basis of airway disorders. Nanovesicles produced by EMTU and MML elements are probably the most important tool of communication among the different cell types, inclu…
487 The Influence of Inhaled Corticotherapy on the Growth and Development in Asthmatic Children
2012
Background Inhaled corticotherapy is the main anti-inflammatory controller type therapy in asthmatic children. Impaired growth as a result of long-term corticotherapy remains a disputed issue of topical interest for both endocrinologists, pneumologists and pediatricians. Objective The study evaluates the influence of long term small dose inhaled corticotherapy on growth and somatic development in asthmatic children. Methods Observational analytical study on 2 samples of subjects. The study group: 100 asthmatic children with small dose inhaled corticotherapy (beclomethasone dipropionate Becotide 200–400 µg/day or fluticasone propionate Flixotide 100–300 µg/day), for 24 months therapy. The co…