Update on Biomarkers of Vasculopathy in Juvenile and Adult Myositis.

Purpose Of Review: Although rare, idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM) comprise a heterogeneous group of autoimmune conditions in adults and children. Increasingly, vasculopathy is recognised to be key in the underlying pathophysiology and plays a crucial role in some of the more challenging complications including calcinosis, gastrointestinal involvement and interstitial lung disease. The exciting prospect of development of biomarkers of vasculopathy would enable earlier detection and monitoring of these complications and possible prevention of their potentially devastating consequences.

Primary airway epithelial cell culture and asthma in children-lessons learnt and yet to come.

Until recently the airway epithelial cell (AEC) was considered a simple barrier that prevented entry of inhaled matter into the lung parenchyma. The AEC is now recognized as having an important role in the inflammatory response of the respiratory system to inhaled exposures, and abnormalities of these responses are thought to be important to asthma pathogenesis. This review first explores how the challenges of studying nasal and bronchial AECs in children have been addressed and then summarizes the results of studies of primary AEC function in children with and without asthma.

Chest auscultatory signs in infants presenting to A&E with bronchiolitis.

Background: Anecdotally it has been noted that the traditional chest signs associated with bronchiolitis appear inconsistently in infants clinically diagnosed with bronchiolitis. We wished to explore this more formally.

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess whether the auscultatory chest signs at presentation in infants with bronchiolitis were influenced by age or by the underlying pathogen.