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Long term research project of young children with asthma
Multiple-breath washout (MBW) is a new and sensitive lung function test qualified for use on very young children. In their study Asthma UK and the Institute of Child Health at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London use MBW among other tests to investigate how asthma affects the growing airways of babies and infants.
Every tenth child in the United Kingdom develops asthma, the chronic disease in childhood with the highest incidence. A long term research project at the Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, that is funded by the charity Asthma UK, will explore the effects of asthma in the airways of wheezing babies and very small children. The researchers investigate the symptoms, as well as the relation between cellular processes and decreasing airway function of the growing lung.
In a first step doctors from the Royal Brompton hospital performed bronchoscopies and biopsies on the small participants to assess the cellular status. These children will now have their lungs investigated in detail: the researchers measure markers of inflammation and run lung function tests. With the non-invasive multiple-breath washout method, recently developed by scientists at the Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital, the function and degree of damage of the very small airways could be measured. Researchers now have the unique opportunity to see how asthma develops in childhood, a procedure that was extremely difficult with former methods. The results are compared to tests taken on 32 children with only mild wheeze and healthy children.
Dr Victoria King, Research Development Manager at Asthma UK comments: “It is essential to understand how the lungs function in very young children so we can target treatments more effectively. We are pleased to be funding and supporting this research and will continue to monitor it with interest.”
This article was published on 08/20/2007