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Objective To investigate the clinical features of children with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP) complicated by plastic bronchitis (PB) and related risk factors, and to provide a reference for the early diagnosis and treatment of such disease. Methods A total of 75 children who underwent bronchoscopy and were diagnosed with MPP in our hospital from July 16 to November 6 in 2021 were enrolled, and according to the presence or absence of bronchial plastic casts, they were divided into PB group and non-PB group. Clinical data were compared between the two groups; a logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the risk factors for MPP complicated by PB, and protein mass spectrometry was used to analyze the components of bronchial plastic casts in the children with PB. Results Compared with the non-PB group, the PB group had significantly higher frequency of pyrexia, proportion of children with a duration of fever of ≥10 d, proportion of children with pulmonary consolidation, percentage of neutrophils in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and levels of C-reactive protein, lactate dehydrogenase, procalcitonin (PCT), and D-dimer (t=2.290-3.793,χ2=5.548,5.659,Z=-2.085,P25.20 mm/1 h and PCT >0.19 μg/L. The bronchial plastic casts of children with PB contain a large amount of fibrinogen, which may be associated with the abnormal activation of coagulation-fibrinolytic system due to inflammatory response.

Allergic Rhinitis (AR), a prevalent condition in otorhinolaryngology, is mediated by Type 1 hypersensitivity through IgE, characterized by Type 2 inflammatory response and eosinophil infiltration in the nasal mucosa. Since AR disease exhibits significant heterogeneity in symptom severity, an objective assessment of AR severity may facilitate better individualized treatment. To explore the changes in peripheral blood IL-9, Th9, and BAFF levels of allergic rhinitis (AR) in patients and the clinical significance associated with it. A retrospective study selected 80 AR patients admitted from January 2022 to October 2022 as the case group, dividing them into mild and moderate-to-severe groups based on symptom scores. Concurrently, 50 patients without AR, who were treated for nasal bone fractures or underwent septoplasty, were selected as the group for comparison. Alterations in the expression levels of peripheral blood IL-9, Th9, and BAFF were analyzed and compared among the different groups. The diagnostic value of serum BAFF for the severity of AR was analyzed using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Noticeable variations were observed in clinical variables among the three groups such as, total IgE levels, peripheral blood eosinophil count and proportion, TNSS, and VAS (P< 0.05), while no statistically significant differences were observed in other variables (P> 0.05). The comparison of IL-9, Th9, and BAFF among the three groups revealed statistically significant differences (P< 0.05). Analysis using multivariate logistic regression revealed that IL-9 (OR = 2.365), Th9 (OR = 2.186), BAFF (OR = 2.307) were influencing factors of moderate-to-severe AR (P< 0.05). The ROC curve indicated that the AUC for the diagnosis of moderate-to-severe AR by IL-9, Th9, BAFF were 0.770, 0.734, 0.761, respectively, and the combined detection AUC was 0.888, an area under the curve higher than individual testing. Changes in peripheral blood IL-9, Th9, and BAFF levels in AR patients may function as indicators to assess the level of severity in diagnostic procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It is as fact that dual-specificity phosphatase 1 (DUSP1) regulates the T cell activation, pro-allergic response, and inflammation to engage with the pathogenesis of asthma, but its clinical role in children with asthma is unclear. The present study aimed to explore the expression of DUSP1, its association with exacerbation risk, severity, and inflammatory cytokines in children with asthma., Method: Around 52 children with asthma-exacerbation, 50 children in asthma-remission, and 50 healthy children were chosen for the study. The serum levels of DUSP1, as well as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and IL-17 were detected by the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay., Results: The levels of DUSP1 was the highest in healthy children (median (IQR)=34.305 (25.892- 43.693) ng/mL), the second highest in children in asthma-remission (median (IQR)=21.471 (18.581-27.934) ng/mL), and the lowest in children with asthma-exacerbation (median (IQR)=13.982 (7.901-21.624) ng/mL) ( P <0.001). At the same time, DUSP1 was also related to decreased asthma risk with area under curve (AUC) (95%CI) of 0.847 (0.780-0.914), and correlated with its lower exacerbation risk with AUC (95%CI) of 0.755 (0.661-0.849). Besides, DUSP1 was negatively linked with exacerbation severity ( r s =-0.338, P =0.014), immunoglobulin E ( r s =-0.277, P =0.047), TNF-α ( r s =-0.423, P =0.002), IL-1β ( r s =-0.389, P =0.004), and IL-17 ( r s =-0.293, P =0.035), but not related with other disease features in children with asthma-exacerbation. Meanwhile, DUSP1 was only negatively associated with TNF-α (rs=-0.300, P=0.034) and IL-1β ( r s =-0.309, P =0.029) in children in asthma-remission. However, no correlation was found in DUSP1 with inflammatory cytokines or other disease features in healthy children (all P >0.05)., Conclusion: DUSP1 reflects the reduced exacerbation risk, and associates with lower exacerbation severity and inflammatory cytokines in children with asthma-exacerbation; it also associates with inflammatory cytokines in children in asthma-remission. These findings suggest that DUSP1 may help to improve the management of asthmatic children., Competing Interests: The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Background: Although various case-control studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between ADRB2 gene polymorphisms and asthma risk in different population groups, the results have been conflicting and inconclusive., Objective: We performed a case-control study to investigate the association of 4 SNPs in the ADRB2 gene with risk of asthma in children, and then conducted a meta-analysis by combining the previous studies., Methods: A total of 340 patients and 340 age-matched healthy controls were recruited. All of the subjects were genotyped using the PCR-based invader assay. The case-control study was performed to define the contribution of rs1042713, rs1042714, rs1800888, and rs1042711 to the predisposition of asthma. Additionally, we further conducted a meta-analysis of the study findings together with those of previously reported studies., Results: No significant association was found between the polymorphisms rs1042713, rs1042714, rs1800888, and rs1042711 and asthma in the current case-control study. The meta-analysis confirmed that there was no positive association of these SNPs with asthma in children in Asia, South America, Europe and the overall population., Conclusions: None of the four polymorphisms in ADRB2 gene were associated with a risk of asthma in a current children population.