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Annual Congress of Malaysian Thoracic Society
Symposium 1C
Paediatric Asthma
Doctor, Doctor, what will happen to my child’s asthma?
Theresa Guilbert
USA
Parents of infants and young children with recurrent wheezing often ask “Does my child have asthma?”
This is a question that clinicians involved in patient care, and also those researching asthma, would like to be
able to answer. Preschool wheezing, a symptom that can herald the subsequent development of childhood
asthma, is a common problem worldwide. However, the condition improves and ultimately disappears by
school years in many children. Proper identification of infants and young children at increased risk to develop
persistent asthma may help predict long-term outcomes and improve prevention and treatment, but the ability
to identify these children remains limited.
Several classifications of wheezing phenotypes and other tools have been developed in an effort to categorize
children with recurrent wheezing and determine which will ultimately develop asthma. These wheezing
phenotypes and predictive tools are reviewed in this lecture. Almost 50 percent of children are reported to
have wheezing in the first year of life, although only 20 percent will experience continued wheezing symptoms
in later childhood. Wheezing phenotypes have been defined to identify the characteristics and risk factors
associated with children that experience wheezing. Some of these phenotypes describe children who continue
to wheeze until later childhood, while others identify those who continue to wheeze through adolescence and
adulthood. However, the relationship between risk factors and the subsequent development of asthma in later
childhood and adult life is not clear.
Identifying phenotypes of pediatric asthma may help predict long-term outcomes and identify high-risk children
who might benefit from secondary prevention interventions. Although conventional diagnostic evaluation and
clinical indices (e.g., Asthma Predictive Index) can be useful, future tests (e.g., genetic evaluations, exhaled
nitric oxide,, interferon g) may further assist practitioners in discriminating between various phenotypes of
wheezing.
Lunch Satellite Symposium
(Novartis)
Current Treatment of COPD
Philip Eng
Singapore
The burden of COPD continues to increase all over the world. Fortunately, this has been accompanied by
a slew of new drugs for the treatment of COPD. All of these drugs have been backed by mega trials which
have better clarified their efficacy and adverse effects. In this presentation, I will attempt to give an overview
of the current treatment of COPD.
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