U.S. News & World Report 2011-12 edition of “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks pediatric pulmonology care at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children among the best in the country.
Nemours Pediatric Pulmonology Ranks Among the Best
Lung and Respiratory Care (Pulmonology)
Our skilled lung and respiratory care doctors (pulmonologists) – along with nurse practitioners and other specialized staff – treat infants, children, and teens with diseases of the lungs and airways in family-friendly outpatient and inpatient environments.
Nemours pulmonologists are board certified in pediatrics and pulmonology. We see children who have been referred to us by their primary care doctor as well as those whose families have requested an appointment themselves.
We evaluate and care for children with conditions such as:
- airway obstruction
- apnea (brief pauses in breathing, usually during sleep)
- (a lung condition that causes difficulty breathing)
- bronchopulmonary dysplasia (inflammation and scarring in the lungs that develops in premature babies after being on a ventilator for a prolonged period of time)
- cystic fibrosis (a chronic genetic disorder that leads to excess mucus in the lungs along with other findings)
- chronic cough
- muscular dystrophy
- recurrent pneumonia (lung infection)
- sleep-related breathing problems
- ventilator dependence
- tracheostomy (a surgical procedure that creates an opening in the windpipe when breathing is obstructed)
- tuberculosis (a specific type of bacterial infection of the lungs)
- RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), a virus that is particularly dangerous to premature babies
A Team of Experts
Because some of these diseases affect other parts of a child’s body as well, doctors in pulmonary medicine frequently work closely with doctors in other areas. Together they form teams dedicated to giving each child comprehensive and convenient care.
Your child’s care may involve specialists from the following areas:
- allergy
- behavioral health
- critical care medicine
- ENT
- endocrinology
- gastroenterology
- genetics
- immunology
- neonatology
- obesity
- surgery
This care is coordinated through the use of an electronic medical record that allows all consulting doctors access to the latest information about your child’s medical care, test results, and plans for management.
Respiratory Therapy Care Team
Nemours’ pulmonology doctors and nurses work hand in hand with certified respiratory therapists. These specialists provide a variety of services including:
- supplying medical gases needed for treatment
- managing ventilator support
- giving aerosol medications
- performing pulmonary function testing
- educating families about equipment provided for home use
Our Goal for Your Child
No matter what your child’s condition, we recognize the importance of the family in the care and healing process. Because many of the children we see have chronic (long-term) illnesses that require repeated visits, we are committed to building strong relationships with families. We’re also committed to teaching our patients and their families about their condition and how best to manage it. Through education, we can help improve your child’s quality of life, and also often decrease the number of school days your child misses as well as the number of times he or she requires emergency hospital care.
The Nemours Research Lung Center uses progressive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and techniques in its quest to help ease the work of breathing for infants and children challenged by acute and chronic lung disease. The Center takes a proactive role in developing and fostering opportunities for research in neonatal and pediatric lung disease.
The Center includes specialized respiratory testing provided by the Nemours Non-Invasive Pulmonary Evaluation Laboratory (NIPEL), useful in the diagnosis of respiratory disease. The Center frequently collaborates with the departments of Pulmonology, Orthopedics, Pediatric Critical Care, Bone Marrow Transplant, Cardiology and Neonatalogy.
Under the direction of Thomas H. Shaffer, MSE, PhD, the Research Lung Center team’s revolutionary work with the use of perfluorochemicals for liquid ventilation for respiratory distress syndrome, blood substitutes and imaging is known worldwide, as is their work in developmental airway physiology and clinical pulmonary function evaluation in neonates.
Additionally, NIPEL has introduced a new pulse oscillometry machine as a non-invasive way of performing pulmonary function testing on small children.
Nemours Aerosol Research Laboratory, also under the Nemours Research Lung Center, whose team evaluates the delivery of inhaled therapies to improve the lives of children with lung diseases such as asthma and cystic fibrosis (CF). The findings from this lab are making a significant difference for children worldwide by improving drug effectiveness and patient compliance, as well as the development of new aerosolized therapies.
Members of Nemours Center for Clinical Pediatric Pharmacology and Center for Pharmacogenetics are leading efforts for the Nemours Asthma Clinical Research Center (ACRC), one of 20 American Lung Association-sponsored clinical centers across the U.S. The main focus of research within the ACRC network is conducting broad clinical trials to determine the best therapies for people with asthma.
Pharmacogenetics is a relatively new discipline, which seeks to explore associations between patient response to drugs and genetic variation. Much of the current research efforts of Nemours Center for Pharmacogenetics are focused in asthma treatment as prior studies have shown that current asthma drugs are effective in only about 50 percent of patients. This inter-patient variability in response to asthma drugs is related to genetic variation. Knowledge of the genes that are responsible for variable drug effects will enable us to predict which drugs work best to treat asthma symptoms in children and adults, ultimately creating “personalized therapies.” Research will also be used to identify new genetic targets for drug intervention.