Health Impact of Air Quality – Michael Brauer - Asthma Society of Canada

Michael Brauer is a Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at The University of British Columbia. He also directs the Bridge Program – a strategic training program linking public health, engineering and policy. His research focuses on the assessment of exposure and health impacts of air pollution, with specific interest in transportation-related and biomass air pollution. He has participated in monitoring and epidemiological studies throughout the world and served on advisory committees to the World Health Organization, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada, the International Joint Commission and governments in North America and Asia. He is an Associate Editor of Environmental Health Perspectives.

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Corticosteroids in the treatment of acute asthma

REVIEW ARTICLE

Year : 2014  |  Volume : 9  |  Issue : 4  |  Page : 187-192

Abdullah A Alangari

Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Date of Submission    09-Dec-2013

Date of Acceptance    10-Mar-2014

Date of Web Publication    4-Sep-2014

DOI: 10.4103/1817-1737.140120

Small airway dysfunction is associated to excessive bronchoconstriction in asthmatic patients

Research

Veronica Alfieri¹, Marina Aiello¹, Roberta Pisi¹, Panagiota Tzani¹, Elisa Mariani¹, Emilio Marangio¹, Dario Olivieri¹, Gabriele Nicolini² and Alfredo Chetta^1*

• *Corresponding author: Alfredo Chetta chetta@unipr.it

Author Affiliations

¹Clinical & Experimental Medicine Department, University of Parma, Padiglione Rasori, via G. Rasori 10, Parma, 43125, Italy

²Corporate Clinical Development, Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A, Parma, Italy

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Respiratory Research 2014, 15:86  doi:10.1186/s12931-014-0086-1

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at:http://respiratory-research.com/content/15/1/86

Received:	1 April 2014
Accepted:	20 July 2014
Published:	27 August 2014

© 2014 Alfieri et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Current evidence of epidermal barrier dysfunction and thymic stromal lymphopoietin in the atopic march

Eur Respir Rev. 2014 Sep;23(133):292-298.

Li M.

Japanese guideline for occupational allergic diseases 2014

REVIEW ARTICLE

doi:10.2332/allergolint.14-RAI-0771

Kunio Dobashi, Kazuo Akiyama, Atsushi Usami, Hiroo Yokozeki, Zenro Ikezawa, Naomi Tsurikisawa, Yoichi Nakamura, Kazuhiro Sato, Jiro Okumura, on behalf of Committee for Japanese Guideline for Diagnosis and Management of Occupational Allergic Diseases and Japanese Society of Allergology [About this authors]

Placebo Controlled Randomised Trial of Medical Therapy in Otitis Media with Effusion

Glenis Kathleen Scadding* , Allergy & Rhinology , University College London , United Kingdom

Yvonne Colette Darby , Allergy & Rhinology , Royal National TNE Hospital

Anna Jansz , Allergy & Rhinology , RNTNE Hospital, London

David Richards , Respiratory , *Glaxo Smith Kline, Stevenage.

Helen Tate , Statistics , MSD Hertford Rd, Hoddesdon, EN11 9BU

Simon Gane , ENT Surgery , University College London

Abstract

Objective
To explore rhinitis treatment, with and without autoinflation of the middle ear, as therapy for otitis media with effusion

Severe Asthma Phenotyping: The Applicability of Current Proposols in Daily Practice

Research Article

Volume 1 Issue 1 - 2014

Adile Berna Dursun1,2*, Ferda Oner Erkekol2 and Ozlem Kar Kurt2,3

1Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Immunology and Allergic Diseases, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University School of Medicine, Turkey
2Divison of Immunology and Allergic Diseases, Ataturk Chest Disease and Thoracic Surgery Trainig and Research Hospital, Turkey
3Department of Respiratory Medicine, Izzet Baysal University School of Medicine, Turkey

Received: August 12, 2014 | Published: August 21, 2014

*Corresponding author: Adile Berna Dursun, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Immunology and Allergic Diseases, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University School of Medicine, Rize, Turkey, Tel: 905325874868; Email: @

Citation: Dursun AB, Erkekol FO, Kurt OK (2014) Severe Asthma Phenotyping: The Applicability of Current Proposols in Daily Practice. J Lung Pulm Respir Res 1(1): 00003. http://dx.doi.org/10.15406/jlprr.2014.01.00003

  

Abstract

Background: Severe asthma (SA) is also need to be phenotyping. We aimed to demonstrate the applicability of current definition and classification proposals in daily practice.
Methods: SA patients, according to WHO definition of treatment resistant SA, were enrolled from the allergy clinic. The SARP algorith define and WHO proposal were applied to the subjects independently by asthma experts. Demographic and clinical characteristics of the subjects were used for the comparison.
Results: Ninety-five (F/M: 68/27) patients with a mean age of 45.97± 9.44 years (range25-71) were enrolled. The patients were grouped as controlled treatment-resistant SA (56%) and uncontrolled treatment resistant SA group (44%). There was no statistically significant difference between the groups but aspirin hypersensitivity. 49% of patients was classified as exacerbators, 26% as fixed airway obstruction group and 23% as undefined (other 2%). Age and mold sensitivity was higher; FEV1/FVC and FEF25-75 were lower in exacerbation-prone SA. More than half of the patients were define clustered at 4 and 5 according to SARP proposol. Patients with fixed obstruction were only in the clusters 4 and 5.
Conclusion: Current phenotyping proposols failed to cover all SA patients. Thus, there is still need further investigations in order to explore validity and applicability of the phenotyping of SA.

Keywords: Adult asthma; Severe asthma; Phenotype; Cluster analysis; Refractory asthma; Difficult-to-treat asthma

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Dr. David Lang discusses urticaria (hives) and angioedema (swelling). Held on July 7, 2014.

Dr. Michael Foggs discusses the NHLBI guidelines for management of asthma. Held on July 11, 2014.

Component resolved diagnosis: when should it be used?

 

Clinical and Translational Allergy

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Review

Component resolved diagnosis: when should it be used?

Olga Luengo and Victòria Cardona

Provisional PDF

Citation

Abstract (provisional)

The knowledge on molecular allergy diagnosis is continuously evolving. It is now time for the clinician to integrate this knowledge and use it when needed to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and thus provide more precise therapeutic and avoidance measures. This review does not intend to comprehensively analyze all the available allergen molecules, but to provide some practical clues on use and interpretation of molecular allergy diagnosis. The potential role of component resolved diagnosis in circumstances such as the indication of allergen immunotherapy, pollen polysensitization, food allergy, latex allergy or anaphylaxis, is assessed. Interpreting the information provided by molecular allergy diagnosis needs a structured approach. It is necessary to evaluate single positivities and negativities, but also to appraise "the big picture" with perspective.

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Anti-Inflammatory Effect of IL-37b in Children with Allergic Rhinitis

Mediators of Inflammation
Volume 2014 (2014), Article ID 746846, 13 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/746846

Research Article

Wenlong Liu,¹ Li Deng,¹ Yanqiu Chen,¹ Changzhi Sun,¹ Jie Wang,¹ Lifeng Zhou,¹ Huabin Li,² and Renzhong Luo¹

¹Department of Otolaryngology, Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, Guangzhou Medical College, No. 9 Jinsui Road, Guangzhou 510623, China
²Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, No. 1665 Kongjiang Road, Shanghai 200092, China

Received 9 December 2013; Revised 4 July 2014; Accepted 14 July 2014; Published 11 August 2014

Academic Editor: Arkadiusz Orzechowski

Copyright © 2014 Wenlong Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background. Interleukin-37 (IL-37), a newly described member of IL-1family, functioned as a fundamental inhibitor of innate inflammatory and immune responses, especially its isoform IL-37b. Objective. This study was undertaken to evaluate the expression and regulation of IL-37b in children with allergic rhinitis (AR).Methods. Forty children with AR and twenty-five normal controls were included. The relationship between IL-37b and Th1/2 cytokines production in serum and nasal lavage was examined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were purified for in vitro regulation experiment of IL-37b. Intranasal mometasone furoate was given in AR children and IL-37b change after one-month treatment was detected using ELISA. Results. We observed significantly decreased IL-37b expression levels in both serum and nasal lavage compared to controls. IL-37b was negatively correlated with Th2 cytokines. Our results also showed that IL-37b downregulated Th2 cytokine expressed by PBMCs and this modulation was through mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway. We also found that intranasal mometasone furoate therapy can promote nasal IL-37b expression.Conclusion. IL-37b may be involved in Th2 cytokine regulation in AR and its expression was related to the efficacy of intranasal steroid therapy.

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Asthma in the elderly: a study of the role of vitamin D

Short report

Michele Columbo, Reynold A Panettieri and Albert S Rohr

Author Affiliations

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Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology 2014, 10:48  doi:10.1186/1710-1492-10-48

Published: 5 September 2014

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Asthma in the elderly is poorly understood and vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency are very common in older individuals. We studied the role of vitamin D in elderly asthmatics.

Findings: Asthmatics subjects, age 65 and older, were followed every 4 weeks for 12 weeks in the late fall and winter. During the study period they took 2,000 I.U. vitamin D3 daily. Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and calcium were measured at baseline and study end. Twenty nine percent of subjects were deficient and 50% insufficient in serum vitamin D at baseline. Serum vitamin D increased from 24.3 +/- 9.2 ng/ml (60.7 +/- 23 nmol/L) to 34 +/- 7.1 ng/ml (84.9 +/- 17.7 nmol/L) at the end of the study (p < 0.001), whereas calcium was unchanged. We found no significant association between vitamin D and subjects' demographics. Vitamin D was similar in men and women. There was no association between serum vitamin D and inhaled steroid dose. Vitamin D was significantly lower in subjects with uncontrolled asthma (Asthma Control Test, ACT -= 19) compared to the ones with well controlled symptoms (p - 0.05). In subjects with uncontrolled asthma at baseline, ACT scores increased significantly at the end of the study (p - 0.04), but not at 4 and 8 weeks. Spirometric values remained unchanged throughout the study.

Conclusions

Elderly asthmatics very commonly have vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency. Serum vitamin D levels were lower in subjects with uncontrolled asthma. In these subjects, vitamin D supplementation for 12 weeks led to improved ACT scores. Larger, randomized, placebo controlled studies are required to further evaluate whether vitamin D supplementation may improve asthma symptoms in this population.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01730976.

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The intestinal microbiome in early life: health and disease

Front. Immunol., 05 September 2014 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2014.00427

Marie-Claire Arrieta¹, Leah T. Stiemsma², Nelly Amenyogbe², Eric M. Brown¹ and Brett Finlay^1,3,4*

• 1Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• 2Child and Family Research Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• 3Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• 4Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Human microbial colonization begins at birth and continues to develop and modulate in species abundance for about 3 years, until the microbiota becomes adult-like. During the same time period, children experience significant developmental changes that influence their health status as well as their immune system. An ever-expanding number of articles associate several diseases with early-life imbalances of the gut microbiota, also referred to as gut microbial dysbiosis. Whether early-life dysbiosis precedes and plays a role in disease pathogenesis, or simply originates from the disease process itself is a question that is beginning to be answered in a few diseases, including IBD, obesity, and asthma. This review describes the gut microbiome structure and function during the formative first years of life, as well as the environmental factors that determine its composition. It also aims to discuss the recent advances in understanding the role of the early-life gut microbiota in the development of immune-mediated, metabolic, and neurological diseases. A greater understanding of how the early-life gut microbiota impacts our immune development could potentially lead to novel microbial-derived therapies that target disease prevention at an early age.

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