Acute Disease ; Humans ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; diagnosis ; etiology ; microbiology ; virology

Wheezing is one of the most common clinical manifestations of childhood respiratory diseases, mainly associated with virus infection. Recent years, bacteria colonization and its infection are reported to involve in childhood wheezing, especially in infantile wheezing. However, the bacteria flora in the airway is only a phenomenon or a reason to induce some childhood wheezing, and its roles, as well as the mechanism in the development of wheezing remain unknown. This article summarizes the research progress in the relationship between childhood wheezing and bacteria and in the possible mechanisms of childhood wheezing caused by bacteria.
Anti-Bacterial Agents ; adverse effects ; Bacterial Infections ; complications ; Humans ; Respiratory Sounds ; etiology ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; complications

Bocavirus ; isolation & purification ; Child, Preschool ; Humans ; Infant ; Parvoviridae Infections ; diagnosis ; etiology ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; diagnosis ; etiology

Natural disasters may lead to the outbreaks of infectious diseases because they increase the risk factors for infectious diseases. This paper reviews the risk factors for infectious diseases after natural disasters, especially earthquake, and the infectious diseases following disasters reported in recent years. The infectious diseases after earthquake include diarrhea, cholera, viral hepatitis, upper respiratory tract infection, tuberculosis, measles, leptospirosis, dengue fever, tetanus, and gas gangrene, as well as some rare infections. Children are vulnerable to infectious diseases, so pediatricians should pay more attention to the research on relationship between infectious diseases and natural disasters.
Child ; Communicable Diseases ; etiology ; Diarrhea ; etiology ; Disasters ; Earthquakes ; Humans ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; etiology ; Wounds and Injuries ; complications

Child, Preschool ; Fatal Outcome ; Female ; Humans ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; complications ; Shock, Septic ; etiology ; Streptococcal Infections ; complications

Gastroenteritis ; etiology ; virology ; Human bocavirus ; isolation & purification ; Humans ; Parvoviridae Infections ; diagnosis ; Respiratory Tract Diseases ; etiology ; virology

OBJECTIVETo study the relationship between pathogenic bacteria in the nasal middle meatus and acute bacterial respiratory infection in children.

METHODSThree hundred and twenty eight children with respiratory infection (mean age 8 years) were included into the prospective cohort study. The mucosal fluid specimens from the nasal middle meatus were collected under an endoscope for bacterial culture. The patients with bacterial culture positive were defined as the Exposed group and those with bacterial culture negative as the Non-exposed group. The grouping of the patients was blinded to the patients, patients' parents and physicians. Both groups received anti-virus and symptomatic treatments, without antibiotic administration. Five days later, the patients were evaluated as to whether they had bacterial infection based on the leucocyte count and CRP results.

RESULTSOf the 328 patients, 168 had a positive nasal bacterial culture. The incidence of bacterial respiratory infection in the Exposed group [51.2% (86/168)] was significantly higher than in the Non-exposed group [13.1% (21/160)] (P < 0.01). The relative risk of bacterial respiratory infection occurrence in patients with nasal bacterial culture positive was 3.9002.

CONCLUSIONSThe children with respiratory infection who had potential pathogenic bacteria in the nasal middle meatus were more prone to develop bacterial respiratory infection.

Acute Disease ; Bacterial Infections ; etiology ; Child ; Cohort Studies ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Nose ; microbiology ; Prospective Studies ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; etiology

A household interview survey of 3,651 children aged 0-14 years was performed February-June 1985 to assess the relationship between family smoking and acute respiratory disease (cough) in children. Family smoking (risk variable) was measured by using six variables which were: number of smokers in the family, parental smoking, number of smokers in the same room, number of cigarettes consumed daily by all family members, number of cigarettes consumed daily by parents and number of cigarettes consumed daily by the same room members. Then six logistic models were estimated with each of the six risk variables and selected confounding variables. The range of estimated relative odds of six risk variables was between 126 and 3.00. However, three risk variables showed a significant negative interaction with coughers in the family. So, if there were coughers in the family, the relative odds of these three risk variables were reduced to around 1. This study does not offer the conclusion that family smoking directly contributes to the develpment of acute respiratory disease in children but does suggest the possibility of direct or indirect causal relationship between them.
Adolescent ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Human ; Infant ; Respiratory Tract Infections/etiology* ; Risk ; Tobacco Smoke Pollution*

Olfaction is one of the ancient sensing capabilities and plays an important role in monitoring environment. Although olfactory loss is common, it's obviously underappretiated by medical community generally. In order to help patients with those problems, the author gives an brief review about the characters of common etiologies, treatment and prognosis of Olfactory Dysfunction. It's concluded that most usual causes resulting in dysos- mia are upper-respiratory-tract infections, trauma, and chronic rhinosinusitis; and our understanding of the olfaction mechanism grows, but frustratingly, aside from the possible therapeutic potential of systemic steroids, no method has been proved to have solid evidence for curing olfactory loss; so we need more new basic and clinic research to develop effective therapeutic intervention.
Chronic Disease ; Humans ; Olfaction Disorders ; etiology ; therapy ; Prognosis ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; Sinusitis ; Smell

OBJECTIVEThe impact of human bocavirus (HBoV), a newly identified human parvovirus, on childhood persistent wheezing has not been identified. In this study, the clinical features of infantile persistent wheezing induced by HBoV was analyzed.

METHODSTracheal aspirates were collected by bronchofibroscope or nasopharyngeal (NP) aspirates from April, 2006 to January, 2007. HBoV DNA in the tracheal aspirates of 33 children with persistent wheezing and in NP aspirates of 6 children with persistent wheezing, who had at least or more than four weeks wheezing. RSV was identified by virus isolation in Hep-2 cells and antigen detetion by direct immunofluorescence assay (DIFA) which was also used for diagnosis of adenovirus, influenza A and B, parainfluenza 1, 2, 3 infection.

RESULTSOf the 39 children with persistent wheezing, 12 cases (31%) were positive for HBoV DNA. Age of HBoV-positive patients ranged from 2 month to 1 year. The results of sequencing of PCR products proved that sequences of HBoV DNA from these 12 samples were exactly identical to the those of HBoV stored in GeneBank (accession numbers DQ000495 and DQ000496). Two cases with HBoV infection were found to be co-infected with RSV. Ten of the 12 HBoV-positive samples were collected during the period from winter to spring (1 in November, 4 in December, 2 in January and 3 in April), the other two HBoV-positive samples were collected during the period from summer to autumn (1 in May and the other in July). Seven of the 12 HBoV DNA-positive patients had fever, 5 of them had high fever. Significantly more patients with HBoV infection had fever as compared to patients with RSV infection. All the HBoV positive patients showed abnormal findings on chest X ray such as interstitial infiltrates, lung infiltration and hyperinflation. Abnormal findings on chest X ray were found in higher proportion of HBoV positive patients as compared with RSV positive patients. And other manifestations such as wheezing, cough and respiratory distress had no significant difference between HBoV and RSV infected patients.

CONCLUSIONSThis study further demonstrated that HBoV probably is a common pathogen of lower respiratory infection in children and might particularly be associated with persistent wheezing.

Child, Preschool ; Cough ; etiology ; Female ; Fever ; etiology ; Human bocavirus ; pathogenicity ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Nasopharynx ; pathology ; Paramyxoviridae Infections ; physiopathology ; Parvoviridae Infections ; physiopathology ; Respiratory Sounds ; etiology ; Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections ; classification ; physiopathology ; Respiratory Tract Infections ; diagnosis ; physiopathology ; virology