Respiratory Conditions

The basics…

Respiratory conditions affect the airways, including lungs and nasal passages. These conditions can be long-lasting (chronic) or shortterm (acute). Children with these conditions have difficulty breathing, and can experience wheezing, tightness of the chest, and a cough. Common respiratory conditions may involve either difficulty exhaling (e.g. asthma, bronchiectasis, or bronchitis) or difficulty inhaling air (e.g. sinusitis or hay fever).

The cause?
Research shows that common risk factors for respiratory conditions like asthma include:

• poverty 
• mouldy, damp, or poorly heated homes
• crowded households
• unhealthy diets
• frequent or severe lower respiratory infections during childhood
• exposure to tobacco smoke and environmental air pollution
• and genetic factors.

The numbers: respiratory illness in New Zealand…

In the government’s 2019/20 Health Survey, 13.5% of children aged 2–14 years had asthma and were currently taking medication for this condition. In 2020, around 4,000 hospitalisations were for asthma and wheeze, nearly 6,500 for acute bronchiolitis, almost 3,000 were for pneumonia, and over 4,100 for acute upper respiratory infections (of multiple and unspecified sites).

What are we doing to help?

Latest research 

Helping prevent hospitalisation

Professor Cameron Grant is studying whether OM-85 — a medicine that stimulates immune responses associated with defence against viral infections— can reduce recurrent respiratory tract infections and prevent wheeze in young children.

Studying lung mechanics to improve breathing
Dr Jennifer Knopp aand her team at the University of Canterbury are researching lung mechanics to gain a better understanding of how neonatal ICU patients breathe. With better insights into patient conditions there’s great potential to improve the delivery of assisted ventilation, reduce the risks of ventilator-induced lung injury and reduce the reliance on assisted ventilation.

Treating respiratory viral infections
Professor Stuart Dalziel, Cure Kids’ Chair of Child Health Research, from Starship Children’s Hospital is undertaking a project to assess the effectiveness of using a combination of adrenaline and steroids to treat children with bronchiolitis – the most common reason for New Zealand infants to be admitted to hospital.

Improving the treatment for chest physiotherapy
The main treatment for bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis is chest physiotherapy to remove excess mucus from the airways. Dr Cass Byrnes and her team have trialled a new device — ‘The BreatheHero’ — to determine if it improves both the quality of life and adherence to treatment for children in the trial.