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Background Worldwide prevalence of asthma seems to be increasing in adolescents, but limited data is available regarding the management of asthma in this age group. Objective Therefore, we conducted an international survey focused on physicians who manage asthma in order to understand how Asthma Management in ADOlescents (AMADO) is currently performed. Methods The AMADO survey is a web-based global survey of physician's attitudes towards the management of asthma in adolescents, circulated for 17 weeks. The survey had an anonymous and voluntary standard. The questionnaire consisted in 27 questions covering the training background of respondents, difficulties in diagnosis, and in management of asthma in adolescents. Results Two hundred forty-four responses were received from 46 countries, from all continents. Most (65%) of participants indicated allergy as being their main specialty. The majority of participants (62%) had more than 5 years of clinical practice, but 62% have no formal training in management of adolescents with asthma. Most of participants (96%) indicated having at least one case of asthma in adolescents per month. 60% of respondents mentioned that the asthmatic adolescents only had the consultation due to the family imposition. All respondents mentioned having difficulties in the management of asthma in adolescents due to patient poor adherence. Overall, 44% of participants have no specific health care resources for adolescents in their departments. Main suggestions from the participants were: optimization of time and personalized communication to these cohort, and standardization of multidisciplinary actions to improve adherence to asthma control treatment. Conclusion Management of asthma in adolescents is still a challenge in clinical practice. The results from this survey helped us to identify the key issues to improve clinical outcomes in the future. This survey is the first step of the international AMADO initiative, which intends to optimize diagnosis and control of asthma and prevent avoidable deaths.

We have devised a new approach that extends the kinetic method to systems where the competitive dissociation (the cornerstone of the kinetic method) will occur not at one binding center but at two spatially different places. This approach was tested on dissociation of complexes of two symmetric doubly protonated diamines with seven different crown ethers resulting in the relative binding order of alkylammonium cation (half of the protonated diamine dication) to the crown ethers. For the experiments with 1,10-diaminodecane, leading to the n-alkylammonium binding ladder, the order was dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 > dibenzo-21-crown-7 > 18-crown-6 > dibenzo-24-crown-8 > dibenzo-18-crown-6 > 15-crown-5 > 12-crown-4. When N,N′-dimethyl-1,8-octanediamine was used, the experiments gave rise to the relative binding of N-methyl-n-alkylammonium cation, which was dibenzo-24-crown-8 > dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 > dibenzo-21-crown-7 > dibenzo-18-crown-6 > 18-crown-6 > 15-crown-5 > 12-crown-4. The observed binding trends were explained in terms of size of the alkylammonium cation, size of the cavity of the crown, flexibility of the crown substituents, and overall crown polarizability. Our data qualitatively correlate well to the literature gas-phase values for these systems as well as to the solution data (where available).