Allergy/Asthma

The online shopping market for medical products has expanded during the past few years to include products that manufacturers claim can help families introduce peanuts and other common food allergens to children.

Teens with overweight or obesity and uncontrolled asthma who consumed two nutritional supplement bars daily and attended nutrition and exercise classes experienced improved lung function and a better quality of life without losing weight, according to results of a small pilot clinical trial published in The FASEB Journal.

The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, or ACAAI, has published the Pediatric Asthma Yardstick, a new guideline describing how and when treatment should be stepped up for children with uncontrolled asthma.

The use of alternative antibiotics in those with a reported penicillin allergy accounts for over half of the increased risk of methicillin-resistant Staphylcoccus aureus infections and over one-third of the increased risk for Clostridium difficile infections.

A link found between allergic comorbidities and an eosinophilic esophagitis diagnosis suggests that the painful inflammation of the esophagus may be a late manifestation of the allergic march, or the natural history of the childhood development of allergic conditions.

Pediatric tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies increase the risk of upper respiratory tract diseases and slightly increase the risk for other infectious and allergic diseases, according to research published in JAMA Otolaryngolgy-Head & Neck Surgery.

In July 1988, the first issue of Infectious Disease News was published (Figure 1, that’s right, I kept it all these years), with Dr. Ted Eickhoff as the Chief Medical Editor. Virtually all adult and pediatric infectious disease specialists received it at no cost. And although unsolicited publications (freebies) are often mostly a glorified collection of advertisements, IDN seemed different, with meaningful, well-written pieces, by very reputable experts, supplemented by high-quality pictures on glossy paper. It took the reputation of Dr. Eickhoff to recruit leading experts to contribute and his academic leadership to ensure overall quality.

A genetic biomarker of asthma collected from a nasal swab can accurately diagnose asthma in patients with mild to moderate symptoms. The identification of this biomarker using the swab can also differentiate between asthma and other respiratory diseases, including allergic rhinitis, upper respiratory infections and cystic fibrosis.

Health care professionals incorrectly used an asthma inhaler almost 85% of the time, according to a systematic review recently published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.

To coordinate pediatric research programs, the NIH announced the formation of the Trans-NIH Pediatric Research Consortium.