Why is asthma so interesting as a research issue?
There is a real need to understand why some very young children with asthma appear to outgrow the condition, whilst others develop irreversible damage to their airways.
We know that damage sustained in the first years of life is likely to have long term effects and that it is essential to start appropriate treatment as early as possible. Measurement of lung function in the very young could enable targeting of those children most likely to benefit from treatment, while avoiding unnecessary medicine in those who do not require such interventions.
What do you most enjoy about your work?
I thoroughly enjoy working with families and their young children, as well as the complexities of adapting lung function tests to make them suitable for use in the very young. My work also involves a great deal of international collaboration and it has been particularly heartening to experience the degree of altruism from paediatric researchers all over the world who have been prepared to share their expertise for the greater benefit of children with lung conditions.
How does Asthma UK help your research?
Many funding bodies do not have the resources to support major international initiatives such as the one we are currently engaged in. By providing funding over a three year period, Asthma UK is allowing us to develop the necessary infrastructure to establish international paediatric growth charts for lung function and to determine the best ways of assessing lung function in the very young, which would have been impossible without this support.
What do you hope to achieve as a result of your research?
We hope to provide ‘Asthma UK growth charts for lung function’, by identifying differences in the way lung function tests are currently performed. We will also be able to develop guidelines for more standardised ways of performing these tests in young children.
Recent international efforts to standardise methods for assessing lung function in infants and pre-school children mean that, for the first time, continuous, objective assessments of respiratory function are now possible from birth.
Improved ability to perform lung function tests and interpret the results in pre-school children would help doctors diagnose, assess and monitor very young children with asthma and thereby help to offer treatment early in the course of their condition. Hopefully, this ‘gold-standard’ of lung function tests will lead to better control of symptoms, less risk of permanent lung damage and both immediate and long term improvements in the quality of life for these children and their parents.
For an update on progress to date visit: www.growinglungs.org.uk
How we help
Asthma UK research projects for 2008
Our researchers
Dr Janet Stocks
Janet Stocks is Professor of Respiratory Physiology, University College London (UCL), at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital. Her main area of research is the growth and development of the lungs and factors that influence this during childhood.
