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Bronchiolitis is a common condition that occurs in the first two years of life and has been associated with increased morbidity in later childhood. Following bronchiolitis, children have been noted to have increased wheeze, cough and asthma, increased airway responsiveness, and reduced lung function. When compared with other cohort members, infants with bronchiolitis will have reduced lung function and increased respiratory symptoms in childhood. This article concludes that reduced lung function is present before and after bronchiolitis; the level of reduction is comparable. The mechanism for wheeze and reduced lung function after bronchiolitis appears to be related to premorbid lung function and not bronchiolitis per se.

Background: Prospective data on the temporal relation between cough, asthma symptoms, and airway inflammation in childhood asthma is unavailable. Aims and methods: Using several clinical (diary, quality of life), lung function (FEV1, FEV1 variability, airway hyperresponsiveness), cough (diary, cough receptor sensitivity (CRS)), and inflammatory markers (sputum interleukin 8, eosinophilic cationic protein (ECP), myeloperoxidase; and serum ECP) of asthma severity, we prospectively described the course of these markers in children with asthma during a non-acute, acute, and resolution phase. A total of 21 children with asthma underwent these baseline tests; 11 were retested during days 1, 3, 7, and 28 of an exacerbation. Results: Asthma exacerbations were characterised by increased asthma and cough symptoms and eosinophilic inflammation. Sputum ECP showed the largest increase and peaked later than clinical scores. Asthma scores consistently related to cough score only early in the exacerbation. Neither CRS nor cough scores related to any inflammatory marker. Conclusion: In mild asthma exacerbations, eosinophilic inflammation is dominant. In asthmatic children who cough as a dominant symptom, cough heralds the onset of an exacerbation and increased eosinophilic inflammation, but cough scores and CRS do not reflect eosinophilic airway inflammation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a research on the diagnosis of a rare case of children cough, primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD). The article concludes that if the diagnosis of PCD is to be made and morbidity avoided, a clear, focused history and examination is required to select the child who needs specialist referral. At the moment, too many children with PCD are not being diagnosed early enough, and thus treated appropriately.

The article offers a short review relating to chronic cough in children. The section discusses the effects of a seminal paper by Sheila Mackenzie from the early 1990s on the author's approach to the diagnosis and management of chronic cough in children. The author states that Mackenzie's review was not that cough variant asthma does not exist, because the axiom remains that it is unwise to use never in medicine and that the author have a very small number of patients who fits the label.