Persistent Bacterial Bronchitis: Time to Venture beyond the Umbrella

Frontiers in Pediatrics

Andrew Bush¹ 

关键词: cystic fibrosis;    primary ciliary dyskinesia;    endotype;    airway infection;    airway inflammation;    bronchoalveolar lavage;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fped.2017.00264

学科分类：儿科学

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Chronic cough in children is common and frequently mismanaged. In the past, cough was diagnosed as asthma and inappropriate asthma therapies prescribed and escalated. It has been realized that persistent bacterial bronchitis (PBB) is a common cause of wet cough and responds to oral antibiotics. The initial definition comprised a history of chronic wet cough, positive bronchoalveolar (BAL) cultures for a respiratory pathogen and response to a 2-week course of oral amoxicillin–clavulanic acid. This is now termed PBB-micro; PBB-clinical eliminates the need for BAL. PBB-extended is PBB-micro or PBB-clinical but resolution necessitating 4 weeks of antibiotics; and recurrent PBB is >3 attacks of PBB-micro or-clinical/year. However, the airway has only a limited range of responses to chronic inflammation and infection, and neutrophilic airway disease is seen in many other conditions, such as cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia, both chronic suppurative lung disease endotypes, whose recognition has led to huge scientific and clinical advances. There is an urgent need to extend endotyping into PBB, especially PBB-recurrent. We need to move from associative studies and, in particular, deploy sophisticated modern –omics technologies and systems biology, rather as has been done in the context of asthma in U-BIOPRED. In summary, the use of the term PBB has done signal service in pointing us away from prescribing asthma therapies to children with infected airways, but we now need to move beyond a simple description to teasing out underlying endotypes.

【 授权许可】

CC BY