UK Department of Health, Research in Real Life.

No abstract

Newborn screening was associated with improved growth, reduced morbidity, and reduced therapy, yet generated equivalent pulmonary outcome compared with late clinical diagnosis, suggesting that newborn screening may slow cystic fibrosis lung disease progression.

Once-daily inhaled plus intranasal budesonide and once daily montelukast showed comparable efficacy on lower airway, but only the budesonide had significant efficacy on upper airway inflammatory markers. Both treatments significantly reduced allergic rhinitis symptoms.

Both intranasal mometasone furoate as monotherapy and oral cetirizine plus montelukast as cotherapy were equally effective for objective and subjective measures of treatment response in SAR. Domiciliary measurements of symptoms and peak flow were more sensitive than laboratory measurements of rhinomanometry, acoustic rhinometry and nasal nitric oxide.

A human cortex-derived neural stem cell (NSC) line modified to express insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), HK532-IGF-I, is characterized in this report. The cell line is under study as a cellular therapy for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). HK532-IGF-I cells preferentially differentiated into gamma-aminobutyric acid-ergic neurons, a subtype dysregulated in AD; produced increased vascular endothelial growth factor levels; and displayed an increased neuroprotective capacity in vitro. HK532-IGF-I cells survived peri-hippocampal transplantation in a murine AD model and exhibited long-term persistence in targeted brain areas.

These results suggest that domiciliary measurements of nasal peak flow correlate significantly with symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis and may therefore be a potentially useful objective short-term marker of treatment response.

Despite international and national guidelines, poor asthma control remains an issue. Asthma exacerbations are costly to both the individual, and the healthcare provider. Improvements in our understanding of the therapeutic benefit of asthma therapies suggest that, in general, while long-acting bronchodilator therapy improves asthma symptoms, the anti-inflammatory activity of inhaled corticosteroids reduces acute asthma exacerbations. Studies have explored factors which could be predictive of exacerbations. A history of previous exacerbations, poor asthma control, poor inhaler technique, a history of lower respiratory tract infections, poor adherence to medication, the presence of allergic rhinitis, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, psychological dysfunction, smoking and obesity have all been implicated as having a predictive role in the future risk of asthma exacerbation. Here we review the current literature and discuss this in the context of primary care management of asthma.