MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Veronica Hulstrøm MD, PhD
Senior Director
Clinical Project Lead for RSV Older Adults
GSK
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?Response: The AReSVi-006 phase III trial is designed to investigate the efficacy and safety of GSK’s respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine candidate for adults aged 60 years and above. The phase III trial is a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, international trial with 24,966 participants who received either the investigational vaccine or placebo.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Giovanni Piedimonte, MD, FAAP, FCCP
Vice President for Research
Institutional Official
Professor of Pediatrics
Tulane University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: We have been testing the hypothesis that, when a pregnant woman catches a common cold with a virus called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), viral particles can spread from the mother’s respiratory tract to the unborn child via the placenta. Preliminary data in animal models suggest that this is possible, and might cause changes in lung growth predisposing the offspring to develop asthma after birth. Recently, also human data have supported this theory.
However, an essential step to conclusively demonstrate vertical transmission of respiratory viruses was the confirmation that human placentas can be infected and allow the transmission of such germs, which is the main finding of this study. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Benjamin D. Horne, PhD
Director of Cardiovascular and Genetic Epidemiology
Intermountain Heart Institute
Intermountain Medical Center
Salt Lake City, UtahMedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Evidence suggests that short-term elevations (even for just a few days) of fine particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5, which is particulate matter less than 2.5 um or about one-thirtieth the diameter of a human hair) is associated with various poor health outcomes among adults, including myocardial infarction, heart failure exacerbation, and worsening of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease symptoms. Studies of long-term exposure to moderately elevated levels of PM2.5 indicate that chronic daily air pollution exposure may contribute to death due to pneumonia and influenza.
Research regarding the association of short-term elevations in PM2.5 has provided some limited evidence of a possible association between short-term PM2.5 increases and infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) or bronchiolitis in children, but scientifically these reports have been weak and unreliable, probably because they have only looked at a period of a few days to a week after short-term PM2.5 elevations. An evaluation of a very large population in a geographic location that provides a wide variation in PM2.5 levels from lowest to highest levels and that examines longer periods of time after the PM2.5 elevations is needed to determine whether a PM2.5 association with lower respiratory infection exists.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Hiroyuki Mochizuki, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor & Chairman
Department of Pediatrics
Tokai University School of Medicine
Japan
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: My major is allergy and respiratory health of children. By this examination, we wanted to know the true influence of respiratory syncytial virus infection on childhood atopic asthma. We have confirmed that infantile asthma is heterogenic, and at least two kinds of phenotypes are present.
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Nelson Lee
BBS(HK),MD(CUHK),FRCP(Lond),FRCP(Edin),FHKCP,FHKAM(Med)
Daniel Yu Professor of Infectious Diseases
Head, Division of Infectious Diseases,
Department of Medicine and Therapeutics,
Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Hon. Consultant, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Lee: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is increasingly recognized as an important cause of severe respiratory-tract infections in older adults, resulting in excessive hospitalizations and deaths annually. At present, no established antiviral treatment is available. The slow progress in therapeutics development is limited by the poor understanding of the clinical manifestations, severity, virologic changes, and pathophysiology in adult RSV diseases. To address the knowledge gap, we conducted a prospective study to look at the lower-respiratory complications, progression to respiratory failure, and their relationships to genomic viral loads in adults hospitalized for confirmed RSV infections.
We found that among 123 RSV patients, nearly 90% had lower respiratory tract complications (acute bronchitis/bronchiolitis, radiographic pneumonia, exacerbation of underlying airway diseases, or their combinations), 53% developed respiratory insufficiency requiring bronchodilators and supplemental oxygen, 16% required assisted ventilation, and 12% were admitted to ICU or died. High viral RNA concentration was detected in their respiratory samples, including in patients who had onset longer than 2 days (>7 log10copies/mL). Viral load was associated with disease severity and development of respiratory insufficiency (about 40% increase in risk per log RNA increase).
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:John DeVincenzo, M.D.
Professor of Pediatrics
Division of Infectious Diseases
Professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Biochemistry
University of Tennessee School of Medicine.
Le Bonheur Children's Hospital Memphis, Tennessee
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. DeVincenzo: The main findings are
a) This is the first time that anyone has shown that the infection caused by the RSV virus can be effectively reduced in a human after the infection has already started.
b) We also show for the first time that once we reduce the amount of virus in the patient, that very quickly, they start to feel better. This clinical improvement was not expected to occur so rapidly.
c) The antiviral appeared safe and it was easy to give.
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