- SinusitisPPANT(tm). Pediatric Pulmonary Associates of North Texas, PA. Dallas and Plano, Texas. Pulmonary specialists for infants, children, adolescents and young adults with recurrent or persistent lung problems. Control impairment and reduce risk from asthma, cystic fibrosis, recurrent respiratory infections, chronic sinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux, immune deficiency syndromes and other respiratory problems. Provide optimal treatment with minimal or no adverse side-effects. Meet patients' and families expectations and satisfaction with pulmonary care. Provide the highest quality of pulmonary care for your child.
- Pediatric CareYoshiki Katsumi, MD, PhD, and colleagues from the department of pediatrics at Nantan General Hospital in Kyoto, Japan, examined 85 children aged 15 years and younger who were diagnosed with influenza using a rapid diagnostic test between January and May 2011. Patients were randomly assigned; 44 patients were given laninamivir octanoate (Inavir, Daiichi Sankyo) to inhale once at a dose of either 20 mg or 40 mg (depending on age), and 41 patients were given 20 mg of zanamivir (Relenza, GlaxoSmithKline) to inhale twice daily for 5 days.
- Primary CareIn general, the need for consultation with a subspecialist can be considered in alignment with the asthma guidelines themselves: Referral can occur due to excessive or persistent patient impairment. Referral may be needed due to the risk of an adverse asthma outcome. A patient may need further evaluation for asthma comorbidities or exacerbating environmental factors. An additional reason for referral may be the need for more intensive education than can be provided in a primary-care setting.
- Family PracticeThe asthma guidelines are fairly clear on which pediatric patients are good candidates for referral to an asthma specialist, most often a pediatric pulmonologist or asthma-allergy physician. The specialist can assume a primary role in asthma management or complement the management provided by a general pediatrician or family practice physician. This collaboration between family, primary care, and subspecialty physician can be rewarding and can successfully improve asthma outcomes as long as the overarching goal is to work collaboratively in a patient-centered fashion to enhance access and quality of care for the patient and to ease the overall burden of asthma on the family.
- Emergency CareFischer Langley told the committee that RSV accounts for about 500 deaths, 57,000 to 125,000 hospitalizations, 500,000 emergency room visits and 1.5 million outpatients visits for children younger than age 5 each year. She added that 16.9 per 1,000 cases occur between the ages of birth and 5 months and 5.1 per 1,000 cases occur between the ages of 6 and 11 months.
- Erectile Dysfunction
- Infectious Diseases“Influenza B strains account for an average of 25% of overall influenza infections in the last decade. The previously available trivalent influenza vaccines have only targeted one B subtype, either Yamagata or Victoria. And as would be expected, for the past 10 years (2001 to 2011), we have been correct only 50% of the time,” said Infectious Diseases in Children Editorial Board member Stan L. Block, MD. “So why not target both influenza B subtypes and make a quadrivalent influenza vaccine by including both B Yagamata and B Victoria strains, along with the customary two A subtypes?”
- Flu ShotsInstances of unvaccinated health care workers implicated in hospital outbreaks of influenza are well documented. In 1998, one patient in a U.S. university-affiliated neonatal intensive care unit died from influenza, according to "An Outbreak of Influenza A in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit," published in the July 2000 journal Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. The outbreak infected 19 infants. Only 15 percent of the health professionals working in the unit received flu shots that year.
- PneumoniaAdherence to current guidelines for treatment of non-complicated community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children, recommending penicillin or ampicillin as first-line treatment, has been poor.
- ImmunizationsThe CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted in favor of the recommendation for all adults aged 19 years and older who have not received a previous dose of the tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis vaccine to be vaccinated with a single-dose of the vaccine.
- Pregnancy
- Labor and DeliveryThis finding and other research linking early birth to, among other things, "a higher risk of needing special education services," illustrate the need to redefine "the terms surrounding childbirth." In other words, the authors say, the medical community should "send a loud and clear message about what 'full term' really means."
- Internal MedicineSt. David's HealthCare Chief Medical Officer Thomas Knight, MD, faced the devastation of influenza early in his career. As an internal medicine resident in 1985, he watched a 34-year-old pregnant woman in the intensive care unit (ICU) succumb to acute respiratory distress syndrome.
- Prostate CancerOne of ObamaCare's core promises is that American technocrats will also use medical evidence to control health spending, but the British experience neatly illustrates the inevitable outcome. In the medical journal Lancet Oncology in 2008, researchers produced the first direct world-wide comparison of five-year survival rates for breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. The U.S. had the highest survival rate for breast cancer at 83.9% and prostate cancer at 91.9%—compared to the U.K.'s respective 69.7% and 51.1%.
- AutismThe mercury-based preservative that was a mainstay ingredient in several key vaccines does not contribute to the development of autism among children, according to a report released today.
- Anxiety
- MRIIt is human nature to chuckle at a study titled “Acoustic Trauma in the Guinea Pig,” yet this research led to a treatment for hearing loss in infants. Similar examples abound. Transformative technologies such as the Internet, fiber optics, the Global Positioning System, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computer touch-screens and lithium-ion batteries were all products of federally funded research.
- X-Rays
- ChemotherapyBOSTON — Children aged 3 months and younger constituted most of the patients admitted to a California hospital for pertussis, data presented here at the 50th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy indicated.
- Otolaryngology
- BotoxHowever, for Botox and other treatments not covered by Medicare (and for which patients pay the market price out of pocket), appointments to see those same doctors were often available on the same day, and they were made by live receptionists.
- DermatologyTrue food allergy occurs less frequently than thought by pediatricians and parents, with many other types of skin problems, including eczema, commonly mislabeled as allergies, according to a presenter at the American Academy of Dermatology 70th Annual Meeting.
- UlcerAmericans may not be familiar with the medical innovation called negative pressure wound therapy, though it has helped hundreds of thousands of patients with complex or chronic injuries like burns or diabetic ulcer complications that could never heal on their own. Now President Obama's Medicare team is about to severely damage this field, and many others too—all in the name of reforming how the entitlement pays for care.
- EczemaNew evidence linking the use of acetaminophen to development of asthma and eczema suggests that even monthly use of the drug in adolescents may more than double risk of asthma in adolescents compared to those who used none at all; yearly use was associated with a 50 percent increase in the risk of asthma. The research results will be published online on the American Thoracic Society's Web site ahead of the print edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
- Burns
- AllergiesPatients with asthma should undergo evaluation for comorbidities or exacerbating environmental factors, and this may require subspecialty testing or care coordination. This evaluation may even require the services of different types of specialists if a child has multiple comorbidities. While most patients with asthma require minimal and straightforward testing, some will require testing that necessitates subspecialty evaluation. Detailed allergy testing for environmental triggers or food allergy is the most obvious example and is most frequently performed by an asthma-allergy specialist. (Ed. Note: PPANT can do all of this.) Occasionally, other specialized tests, such as flexible bronchoscopy, exercise testing with or without laryngoscopy, exercise or other pulmonary challenge testing, or even polysomnography, will require referral to a pediatric pulmonologist. Other specialized testing or clinical evaluation might require the input of a gastroenterologist (symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux or eosinophilic esophagitis), an otolaryngologist (severe sinus disease), or an immunologist.