Annals of allergy, asthma & immunology : official publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, & Immunology
-
Ann. Allergy Asthma Immunol. · Nov 2013
Automated chart review for asthma cohort identification using natural language processing: an exploratory study.
A significant proportion of children with asthma have delayed diagnosis of asthma by health care providers. Manual chart review according to established criteria is more accurate than directly using diagnosis codes, which tend to under-identify asthmatics, but chart reviews are more costly and less timely. ⋯ Automated asthma ascertainment from electronic medical records using NLP is feasible and more accurate than traditional approaches such as diagnosis codes. Considering the difficulty of labor-intensive manual record review, NLP approaches for asthma ascertainment should be considered for improving clinical care and research, especially in large-scale efforts.
-
Ann. Allergy Asthma Immunol. · Nov 2013
Association of tobacco smoke exposure and atopic sensitization.
Forty million children are regularly exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) each year, increasing their risk for premature death and middle ear and acute respiratory infections. Early life exposure to ETS also is clearly associated with wheezing. However, there is no clear understanding of the influence of ETS on the development of allergic sensitization. ⋯ These data suggest that ETS exposure was not associated with IgE sensitization to indoor allergens, even when home allergen levels were taken into consideration. Further understanding of how components of tobacco smoke influence the immune response is necessary to interpret the disparate findings across studies.
-
Ann. Allergy Asthma Immunol. · Nov 2013
Allergic rhinitis and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level in Korean adults.
Recently, it has been suggested that airway hyper-responsiveness, asthma, and atopic dermatitis are associated with a low vitamin D level. ⋯ This study suggested a potential association between low vitamin D levels and AR prevalence in Korean adults.
-
Ann. Allergy Asthma Immunol. · Nov 2013
Effect of exogenous interferons on rhinovirus replication and airway inflammatory responses.
Human rhinoviruses (HRVs) are the most common cause of asthma exacerbations. In airway epithelial cells, the primary site of HRV infection, decreased production of interferons (IFNs) may result in greater susceptibility to HRV and worsened symptoms. Thus, exogenous IFN could supplement the innate immune response and provide a treatment for virus-induced asthma exacerbations. Furthermore, the effects of exogenous IFN could be type specific in part because of the cellular distribution of type 1 and type 2 IFN receptors. ⋯ These findings suggest that exogenous IFNs, IFN-λ1 in particular, warrant further study as a potential therapy for virus-induced asthma exacerbations.