Premature children unite for lung project
MORE than 1,000 children born prematurely are taking part in a groundbreaking project which aims to find the best way to treat their lung problems.
Born Early Breathe Easy (Bebe), a collaboration between Cardiff and Bangor universities, is studying children aged seven to 12 to investigate how well their lungs function.
The children, all born prematurely, have undertaken breathing tests at home and have then visited the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital for Wales for more extensive investigations.
Up to 200 premature children found to have low lung function are now being invited to join a 12-week inhaler trial and given two of three different inhalers to take every day.
Two of the inhalers contain a particular drug each, while the third is a dummy inhaler.
Some children with normal breathing, either prematurelyborn or term births, are also taking part to act as control subjects.
At the end of the 12 weeks, the children return to hospital to repeat the tests to see if the inhalers have improved their breathing.
A number of them will also have a specialised MRI scan of their lungs at Sheffield University to investigate their lung function further.
One of the participants is nineyear-old Tom Stevens, from Cardiff, who was born extremely prematurely at 24 weeks.
He spent four months on the neonatal unit in hospital before going home a few days before he should have been born.
Tom needed heart, eye and hernia surgery and spent a further six weeks in hospital during his first two years because of breathing problems.
He still receives care from staff at the University Hospital of Wales for his respiratory difficulties.
His mother Justine said: “It is undoubted that without the excellent care of the nurses and doctors, Tom would not be here today.
“The Bebe study information was sent to us, and both Tom and I agreed that it was important to volunteer with the research as there are only a small percentage of children eligible to participate.
“We hope the findings of the study will benefit other ex-premature babies and their families.”
Researchers believe some children born before 34 weeks have breathing difficulties that are either not being detected or misdiagnosed as asthma.
Professor Sailesh Kotecha, who is leading the study, said: “There is no doubt that many babies who were born prematurely develop lung disease as they grow up, but it is unclear why.
“Disappointingly, we don’t know how to treat the lung disease in these children.
“Our study is by far the largest in the world aiming to understand both why these children develop lung disease but also to test which inhalers are the best to use for the lung disease that prematurely born children have.”
A further round of invitations to join the study is being issued to children across south, west and mid Wales, some of whom took part in a previous questionnaire study, named RHiNO (Respiratory Health in Newborns), sent to 26,000 families in 2013.