Traffic linked to 'worsening' child asthma

An Australian study into childhood asthma has sounded an alarm over city living, with even apparently safe levels of traffic pollution found to exacerbate the respiratory condition. Researchers assessed the cases of more than 600 children and adolescents who between 2002 and 2006 were rushed to West Australian hospitals suffering a serious asthma attack.

Air-quality records for the period leading up to each attack were checked, and this revealed a strong trend of rising traffic-related pollutants ahead of each hospital trip. Advertisement: Story continues below Atmospheric levels of nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide were often elevated on the day before a child suffered the asthma attack.

An epidemiologist at the University of WA, Gavin Pereira, said the study showed how traffic pollution was a major factor in the "worsening of this respiratory condition" in children. There were other troubling implications, he said, as Australia had far more traffic-intensive cities than Perth and the effect was seen even as air quality was deemed to meet safety benchmarks.

"This study was conducted in Perth, Western Australia ... pollution levels are generally quite good in Perth," Mr Pereira told AAP. "I've looked at studies from California, for example, and their pollution levels are much higher than here.

"And for our study to have observed an effect when we have met air-quality guidelines is quite remarkable." The effect was most pronounced in asthmatic children aged under four, according to the research as detailed in the latest edition of the Medical Journal of Australia.

Read the full article at Sydney Morning Herald - Click Here

Bronchial Thermoplasty Non-Drug Treatment For Severe Asthma

The Boston Scientific Corporation has released that its acquiring subsidiary Asthmatx, Inc., introduced two year findings from the Asthma Intervention Research 2 (AIR2) Trial evidence of the long term safety and effectiveness of bronchial thermoplasty in adult patients who have severe asthma. The findings were given by Dr. Mario Castro, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine and Principal Investigator of the AIR2 trial, at the CHEST 2010 meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Vancouver.

The findings had emphasized main long term results showing the constancy of safety and effectiveness of bronchial theromplasty established on the relative amount of patients enduring severe irritations and 84% decline in emergency room visits for respiratory symptoms noted at one year in patients treated with BT in comparison to a control group which received pseudo procedure out to two years.

Dr. Castro stated it was gratifying to witness the valuable benefits of BT remain up to two years in patients with severed asthma who were part of the study. These clinical important improvements, combined with constant and maintained long term safety, validate that BT as a meaningful new treatment choice for patients with severe asthma who have poor control regardless of taking high doses of corticosteroids and long acting bronchodilators.

BT is a bronchoscopic procedure usually done under medium sedation with patients usually going home the same day. The Alair® System gives exact controlled thermal energy to the airway wall to decrease extra airway smooth muscle. The procedure reduces the airways ability to tighten therefore decreasing the occurrences and severity of attacks.

Positive safety and effectiveness information at one year post-bronchial thermoplasty were published in the January 2010 issue of American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Read the full article at Examiner - Click Here

Canadian Kids Seem More Likely to Be Sidelined by Asthma

Canadian children with asthma feel more isolated from their peers than children with asthma in other countries surveyed, according to a new study.

Compared to kids with asthma in five other countries, Canadian children with asthma were more likely to feel sad (18.2 percent versus 12.1 percent) and left out (13.2 percent versus 8.4 percent). They also were less likely to feel "no different" than their peers (31.5 percent versus 51.4 percent). More than half of the Canadian kids surveyed considered asthma to be a barrier to sports (54.1 percent) while only 35.2 percent of kids from other countries felt that way.

"The data suggest that Canadian children with asthma may be missing out on being involved in sports because they feel excluded," lead researcher Dr. William Carroll, of Derbyshire Children's Hospital in the United Kingdom, said in a news release from the American College of Chest Physicians.

"It's also possible that sports involving cold air, such as ice hockey, which is popular in Canada, are more difficult for those with asthma," he added.

Carroll and colleagues from Switzerland and the Netherlands interviewed 228 Canadian parents of children with asthma and 159 Canadian children aged 4 to 15 who had asthma. They also examined parent and child interviews conducted in Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Read the full article at Business Week - Click Here

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