• The Journal of Pediatrics of Korean Medicine
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.82-95
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• 2016

Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate recent clinical studies on effect of herbal medicine treatment for recurrent respiratory tract infection in children. Methods We searched some clinical studies about recurrent respiratory tract infection in children from the China Academic Journal (CAJ) of China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) (January 2011 to December 2015). Results 50 papers were selected from 168 studies. The herbal decoction was main herbal medicine treatment for recurrent respiratory tract infection in children. Commonly used herbs were Atractylodis Rhizoma Alba, Glycyrrhizae Radix, Astragali Radix, Saposhnikovia Radix and Pseudostellariae Radix. Yupingfeng keli was the most frequently used herbal compound. Total effective rate was 66.4-100%, experimental group was significantly higher than control group in 45 papers (P<0.05). Immune index (in 22 papers) and curative effect of TCM syndrome (in 7 papers) were significantly higher than those of control group after treatment (p<0.05). Conclusions Herbal medicine has been shown as an effective treatment on recurrent respiratory tract infection in children. These research results can be utilized in other clinical studies and in treatment of recurrent respiratory tract infection for children.

• BMB Reports
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.184-191
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• 2014

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of respiratory infection in infants and young children. Severe clinical manifestation of RSV infection is a bronchiolitis, which is common in infants under six months of age. Recently, RSV has been recognized as an important cause of respiratory infection in older populations with cardiovascular morbidity or immunocompromised patients. However, neither a vaccine nor an effective antiviral therapy is currently available. Moreover, the interaction between the host immune system and the RSV pathogen during an infection is not well understood. The innate immune system recognizes RSV through multiple mechanisms. The first innate immune RSV detectors are the pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), including toll-like receptors (TLRs), retinoic acid-inducible gene-I (RIG-I)-like receptors (RLRs), and nucleotide-biding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptors (NLRs). The following is a review of studies associated with various PRRs that are responsible for RSV virion recognition and subsequent induction of the antiviral immune response during RSV infection.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.197-200
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• 2011

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory infection in children. Most of the pediatric population have RSV infection before the age of 2, and recurrent infections are common even within one season. Chronic lung disease, prematurity, along with congenital heart disease (CHD) are major risk factors in severe lower respiratory infection. In hemo-dynamically significant CHD patients with RSV infection, hospitalization is usually needed and the possibility of treatment in intensive care unit and the use of mechanical ventilator support are known to increase. Therefore the prevention of RSV infection in CHD patients is mandatory. The current standard for RSV prevention is immunoprophylaxis by palivizumab. Immunoprophylaxis is recommended monthly in hemodynamically significant CHD patients, up to 5 months. Motabizumab, a second generation drug and newly developing RSV vaccines are also expected to play a key role in RSV prevention in the future. The prophylaxis of RSV infection in CHD patients is cost-effective in both the medical aspect of the patients as well as the socio-economic aspect. Therefore an effort to promote prevention should be made by not only the family of the patients but also by the government.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.128-137
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• 2014

Respiratory viruses can induce acute respiratory disease. Clinical symptoms and manifestations are dependent on interactions between the virus and host immune system. Dendritic cells (DCs), along with alveolar macrophages, constitute the first line of sentinel cells in the innate immune response against respiratory viral infection. DCs play an essential role in regulating the immune response by bridging innate and adaptive immunity. In the steady state, lung DCs can be subdivided into $CD103^+$ conventional DCs (cDCs), $CD11b^+$ cDCs, and plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs). In the inflammatory state, like a respiratory viral infection, monocyte-derived DCs (moDCs) are recruited to the lung. In inflammatory lung, discrimination between moDCs and $CD11b^+$ DCs in the inflamed lung has been a critical challenge in understanding their role in the antiviral response. In particular, $CD103^+$ cDCs migrate from the intraepithelial base to the draining mediastinal lymph nodes to primarily induce the $CD8^+$ T cell response against the invading virus. Lymphoid $CD8{\alpha}^+$ cDCs, which have a developmental relationship with $CD103^+$ cDCs, also play an important role in viral antigen presentation. Moreover, pDCs have been reported to promote an antiviral response by inducing type I interferon production rather than adaptive immunity. However, the role of these cells in respiratory infections remains unclear. These different DC subsets have functional specialization against respiratory viral infection. Under certain viral infection, contextually controlling the balance of these specialized DC subsets is important for an effective immune response and maintenance of homeostasis.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.74 no.2
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• pp.63-69
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• 2013

Background: Aiming to improve outcome of lung transplantation (LTx) patients, we reviewed risk factors and treatment practices for the LTx recipients who experienced respiratory infection in the late post-LTx period (>1 month after LTx). Methods: We analyzed the clinical data of 48 recipients and donors from 61 LTx, who experienced late respiratory infections. Late respiratory infections were classified according to the etiology, time of occurrence, and frequency of donor-to-host transmission or colonization of the recipient prior to transplantation. Results: During the period of observation, 42 episodes of respiratory infections occurred. The organisms most frequently involved were gram (-) bacteria: Acinetobacter baumannii (n=13, 31.0%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n=7, 16.7%), and Klebsiella pneumoniae (n=4, 10.0%). Among the 42 episodes recorded, 14 occurred in the late post-LTx period. These were bacterial (n=6, 42.9%), fungal (n=2, 14.3%), viral (n=4, 28.5%), and mycobacterial (n=2, 14.3%) infections. Of 6 bacterial infections, 2 were from multidrug-resistant (MDR) A. baumannii and one from each of MDR P. aeruginosa, extended spectrum ${\beta}$-lactamase (+) K. pneumoniae, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Infection-related death occurred in 6 of the 14 episodes (43%). Conclusion: Although the frequency of respiratory infection decreased sharply in the late post-LTx period, respiratory infection was still a major cause of mortality. Gram (-) MDR bacteria were the agents most commonly identified in these infections.

• Pediatric Infection and Vaccine
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.131-135
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• 1999

Respiratory Syncytial Virus(RSV) causes acute respiratory tract infections in young infancy such as bronchiolitis, pneumonia. RSV infections are uncommon in the first month of life. Clinical manifestations of neonatal RSV infection are respiratory symptoms, apnea and bacterial sepsis like illness such as lethargy, poor feeding, fever, rash. We report a case of neonatal pneumonia caused by RSV and accompanied by transient apnea and favorable clinical outcome.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.22-27
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• 2017

The length of hospital stay (LOS) for patients with respiratory virus infections has been reported to depend the virus type and infection severity. However, the impact of co-infections remains unclear. Patients with suspected respiratory virus infections, who visited Dankook University Hospital between December 2006 and February 2014, were included to examine the relationship between co-infections and LOS. Multiplex reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reactions were used to identify the causative viruses. LOS was analyzed with respect to sex, age, virus, and co-infection. During this period, 5,310 out of the 8,860 patients (59.9%; median age, 1.5 years) were respiratory virus-positive. In respiratory virus-positive patients with single, double, and three-or-more infections, the average LOS was 7.3, 6.7, and 6.6 days, respectively. Longer LOS was observed for older patients and those with human coronavirus OC43 infections compared with adenovirus or respiratory syncytial virus A infections. LOS differed significantly according to age, virus type, and co-infection, but not between double and three or more infections.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.316-321
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• 2022

Since 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread rapidly, infecting millions of people worldwide. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic owing to the worldwide spread of SARS-CoV-2, which created an unprecedented burden on the global healthcare system. In this context, there are increasing concerns regarding co-infections with other respiratory viruses, such as the influenza virus. In this study, clinical data of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses were compared with patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 alone. The hematology and blood biochemistry results of 178 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 , who were tested on admission, were retrospectively reviewed. In patients with SARS-CoV-2 and adenovirus co-infection, C-reactive protein levels were elevated on admission, whereas lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), prothrombin time, international normalized ratio, activated partial thromboplastin clotting time, and bilirubin values were all within the normal range. Moreover, patients with SARS-CoV-2 and human bocavirus co-infection had low LDH and high bilirubin levels on admission. These findings reveal the clinical features of respiratory virus and SARS-CoV-2 co-infections and support the development of appropriate approaches for treating patients with SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory virus co-infections.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.132-140
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• 2020

In human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients, Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia (PCP) is a well-known opportunistic infection and its management has been established. However, PCP is an emerging threat to immunocompromised patients without HIV infection, such as those receiving novel immunosuppressive therapeutics for malignancy, organ transplantation, or connective tissue diseases. Clinical manifestations of PCP are quite different between patients with and without HIV infections. In patients without HIV infection, PCP rapidly progresses, is difficult to diagnose correctly, and causes severe respiratory failure with a poor prognosis. High-resolution computed tomography findings are different between PCP patients with HIV infection and those without. These differences in clinical and radiological features are due to severe or dysregulated inflammatory responses that are evoked by a relatively small number of Pneumocystis organisms in patients without HIV infection. In recent years, the usefulness of polymerase chain reaction and serum β-D-glucan assay for rapid and non-invasive diagnosis of PCP has been revealed. Although corticosteroid adjunctive to anti-Pneumocystis agents has been shown to be beneficial in some populations, the optimal dose and duration remain to be determined. Recent investigations revealed that Pneumocystis colonization is prevalent and that asymptomatic carriers are at risk for developing PCP and can serve as the reservoir for the spread of Pneumocystis by airborne transmission. These findings suggest the need for chemoprophylaxis in immunocompromised patients as well as infection control measures, although the indications remain controversial. Because a variety of novel immunosuppressive therapeutics have been emerging in medical practice, further innovations in the diagnosis and treatment of PCP are needed.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.417-430
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a respiratory infection prevention program for the rural elderly in the post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) era. Methods: The Delphi method was used to validate the contents of the program. Two rounds of Delphi surveys and one individual interview were conducted on four subjects and 16 categories with nine experts. Content validity was calculated using the content validity ratio (CVR) and coefficient of variation (CV). Results: This study verified the content validity of the existing program components, such as respiratory infection prevention characteristics, cough etiquette, correct hand washing, oral hygiene, correct tooth brushing, and exercise by walking. The study comprised 28 categories covering seven subjects, including the provision of knowledge and information about COVID-19, environmental management for respiratory infection prevention, and exercise training for immunity enhancement. Conclusion: This Delphi study examined the respiratory infection prevention program that was redesigned for the post-COVID-19 era and confirmed the validity of the educational contents. The findings of this study suggest that the program can be used practically for the prevention of respiratory infection among the rural elderly.