Dysregulation of Airway and Systemic Interferon Responses Promote Asthma Exacerbations in Urban Children.

Background: Determining why some upper respiratory illnesses provoke asthma exacerbations remains an unmet need.

Objective: To identify transcriptome-wide gene expression changes associated with colds that progress to exacerbation.

Methods: 208 urban children (6-17 years) with exacerbation-prone asthma were prospectively monitored for up to two cold illnesses.

Rhinoconjunctivitis Symptoms in Children and Adolescents with Asthma: A Longitudinal Clustering Analysis.

Background: Rhinoconjunctivitis phenotypes are conventionally described based on symptom severity, duration and seasonality and aeroallergen sensitization. It is not known whether these phenotypes fully reflect the patterns of symptoms seen at a population level.

Objective: To identify phenotypes of rhinoconjunctivitis based on symptom intensity and seasonality using an unbiased approach and to compare their characteristics.

Dupilumab Efficacy and Safety in Children With Moderate to Severe Asthma and High Blood Eosinophils: A Post Hoc Analysis of VOYAGE.

Background: Elevated blood or tissue eosinophils are considered to characterize type 2 inflammation in children with asthma and are associated with increased exacerbation rates and worse asthma control. Dupilumab, a human mAb that blocks type 2 inflammatory drivers IL-4 and IL-13, reduced severe exacerbation rates and improved lung function versus placebo in children aged 6 to 11 years with uncontrolled moderate to severe asthma in the phase 3 LIBERTY ASTHMA VOYAGE study (NCT02948959).

Objective: To assess dupilumab efficacy and safety in children from VOYAGE with moderate to severe asthma and greater than or equal to 500 and less than 1500 blood eosinophils/μL at baseline.

Dupilumab Efficacy in Children With Type 2 Asthma Receiving High- to Medium-Dose Inhaled Corticosteroids (VOYAGE).

Background: In phase 3 VOYAGE (NCT02948959; Evaluation of Dupilumab in Children With Uncontrolled Asthma), dupilumab showed clinical efficacy with an acceptable safety profile in children aged 6 to 11 years with uncontrolled moderate to severe type 2 asthma (blood eosinophils ≥150 cells/μL or FeNO ≥20 ppb).

Objective: We analyzed dupilumab's efficacy in children with type 2 asthma by high- or medium-dose inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) at baseline.

Methods: Children were randomized to receive add-on dupilumab 100/200 mg (by body weight ≤30 kg/>30 kg) every 2 weeks or placebo for 52 weeks and stratified by high- or medium-dose ICS at baseline.

Deliberations of the Safety Task Force: Risk factors and treatment of adverse events associated with aesthetic injectables.

Background: The growing popularity of aesthetic procedures involving fillers, biostimulators, and neurotoxins has prompted concerns about patient safety. To address these concerns, a global Safety Task Force (STF) was formed.

Aims: The inaugural STF meeting prioritized vascular compromise prevention and management, guiding clinical trial design and materials for future meetings, and collecting data from experts on current safety methods.

Biology of the proximal tubule in body homeostasis and kidney disease.

The proximal tubule (PT) is known as the workhorse of the kidney, both for the range and magnitude of the functions that it performs. It is not only responsible for reabsorbing most solutes and proteins filtered by glomeruli, but also for secreting non-filtered substances including drugs and uremic toxins. The PT therefore plays a pivotal role in kidney physiology and body homeostasis.

Dupilumab 200 mg was efficacious in children (6-11 years) with moderate-to-severe asthma for up to 2 years: EXCURSION open-label extension study.

Background: The phase 3 VOYAGE (NCT02948959) and open-label extension EXCURSION (NCT03560466) studies evaluated dupilumab in children (6-11 years) with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma. This post hoc analysis assessed the efficacy and safety of add-on dupilumab 200 mg every 2 weeks (q2w), the largest dose cohort in both studies, in children from VOYAGE who participated in EXCURSION.

Methods: Annualized rate of severe asthma exacerbations (AERs), change in prebronchodilator percent predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 s (ppFEV), and treatment-emergent adverse events were assessed in children with moderate-to-severe asthma who received dupilumab 200 mg q2w in VOYAGE and EXCURSION (dupilumab/dupilumab arm) and those who received placebo in VOYAGE and dupilumab 200 mg q2w in EXCURSION (placebo/dupilumab arm).

Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Routine Clinical Practice: Practical Guidance for Institutional Review Boards.

The use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) is increasingly common in routine clinical practice. As tools to quantify symptoms and health status, PROMs play an important role in focusing health care on outcomes that matter to patients. The uses of PROM data are myriad, ranging from clinical care to survey-based research and quality improvement.

Treatment of hydrocephalus following fetal repair of myelomeningocele: comparing endoscopic third ventriculostomy with choroid plexus cauterization to ventricular shunting.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare clinical and craniometric outcomes of patients treated for hydrocephalus following fetal myelomeningocele repair (fMMR) via a ventriculoperitoneal shunt (VPS) or endoscopic third ventriculostomy with choroid plexus cauterization (ETV/CPC).

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of children who were treated for hydrocephalus following fMMR via VPS or ETV with or without CPC (ETV ± CPC) at Vanderbilt between 2012 and 2021. The primary outcomes were treatment failure and time to failure (TTF).

Type 2 Inflammation and Asthma in Children: A Narrative Review.

Increased understanding of the underlying pathophysiology has highlighted the heterogeneity of asthma and identified that most children with asthma have type 2 inflammation with elevated biomarkers, such as blood eosinophils and/or fractional exhaled nitric oxide. Although in the past most of these children may have been categorized as having allergic asthma, identifying the type 2 inflammatory phenotype provides a mechanism to explain both allergic and non-allergic triggers in pediatric patients with asthma. Most children achieve control with low to medium doses of inhaled corticosteroids.

Increasing the Volume of Delivered Enteral Feeds Using a Volume-Based Feeding Protocol in a Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit.

Background: Iatrogenic malnutrition is a significant burden to patients, clinicians, and health care systems. Compared with well-nourished patients, underfed patients (those who receive less than 80% of their daily energy requirement) have more adverse outcomes related to nutritional status. Volume-based protocols allow for catch-up titrations, are consistently superior to rate-based protocols, and can be implemented in most settings.

The Silence Is Deafening: Are Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists Quiet Quitting?

Quiet quitting is a term used to describe the idea of doing the minimum that is required to do your job but not outright quitting. With the extended fatigue from the COVID-19 pandemic and escalating workforce staffing shortages, quiet quitting could be a phenomenon occurring with certified registered nurse anesthetists. Wellness strategies to mitigate quiet quitting are discussed.

Comparison of i-gel® and LMA® Supreme™ for Facilitating Fiberoptic Endotracheal Intubation: A Prospective Randomized Trial.

Supraglottic airway (SGA) is an alternative to endotracheal intubation, however endotracheal intubation is often essential. One method to convert from an SGA to an endotracheal tube (ETT) is utilizing the SGA as a conduit for fiberoptic-guided advancement of an Aintree catheter (airway exchange catheter), and exchange of the SGA for an ETT. In this prospective randomized study, we compared two SGA devices in facilitating this exchange.

Recommendations for asthma monitoring in children: A PeARL document endorsed by APAPARI, EAACI, INTERASMA, REG, and WAO.

Monitoring is a major component of asthma management in children. Regular monitoring allows for diagnosis confirmation, treatment optimization, and natural history review. Numerous factors that may affect disease activity and patient well-being need to be monitored: response and adherence to treatment, disease control, disease progression, comorbidities, quality of life, medication side-effects, allergen and irritant exposures, diet and more.

The gut metagenome harbors metabolic and antibiotic resistance signatures of moderate-to-severe asthma.

Asthma is a common allergic airway disease that has been associated with the development of the human microbiome early in life. Both the composition and function of the infant gut microbiota have been linked to asthma risk, but functional alterations in the gut microbiota of older patients with established asthma remain an important knowledge gap. Here, we performed whole metagenomic shotgun sequencing of 95 stool samples from a cross-sectional cohort of 59 healthy and 36 subjects with moderate-to-severe asthma to characterize the metagenomes of gut microbiota in adults and children 6 years and older.