Male1: Sometimes kids get a fever and they are six or seven months old, they have rapid breathing and they go to the ER and they are found to have pneumonia. How come it is pneumonia? First of all, what is pneumonia?
Male2: Well, pneumonia is infection in the lungs and pneumonia is fairly common. The most common cause of pneumonia are viruses. And there are children who get a routine cold, runny nose, scratchy throat, which develop into pneumonia over the period of several days. There are other forms of pneumonia as well. Bacterial pneumonia is much more dangerous than viral pneumonia and requires more aggressive treatment—antibiotics are commonly used for this form of pneumonia.
Male1: Is pneumonia frequently under six months a tip off that there could be some other problem going on besides, like maybe an immune problem?
Male2: It is certainly very important to take a look at the big picture. Pneumonia is not a common problem in younger babies, so if a young baby less than six months especially were to develop pneumonia, then we would always want to look for some other underlying factor which made him susceptible to develop this type of infection. Problems with the immune system, problems with the development of the lung all could make a child more susceptible to developing pneumonia. The other thing to remember is anybody can get pneumonia once, but a child who gets pneumonia a second or a third time should always be more completely evaluated for an underlying problem.
Male1: If a kid gets pneumonia under six months and seem not to be gaining weight properly, sometimes they do a test called the sweat test?
Male2: Sweat test is a test that looks for an illness called cystic fibrosis and cystic fibrosis is an illness which causes children to have breathing difficulties, repeated episodes of pneumonia and bronchitis as well as difficulty absorbing their food properly, difficulty gaining weight and difficulty growing.
Male1: A child can have just a lung version or just a digestive version or a combination, can it all be kinds of variations?
Male2: Cystic fibrosis is a disease where the symptoms can vary tremendously between children. There are some children where the only symptoms are cough and congestion. Some children have full blown pneumonia and bronchitis. Other children have a difficulty digesting their food and growing and other children can have a combination of all of the above. So the spectrum of the disease is varied and this is the reason that we will test for cystic fibrosis even with very mild symptoms.
Male1: New York State like many states now checks it is a mocker for cystic fibrosis, having that come back in a newborn screening, does that mean my kid really has cystic fibrosis?
Male2: The newborn screening that children have as they leave the nursery is just that—a screening test. By that I mean, it picks up the possibility that your child may have the illness. If the screening test comes back positive, all that means is that you need to bring your child back to the center or get right back to your pediatrician so that the more specific test can be done to either confirm the diagnosis or relieve your concerns and show that the diagnosis was not present.
Male1: If for some unfortunate reason your child was diagnosed of cystic fibrosis, today, we can really treat it pretty effective, can we not?
Male2: The treatments for cystic fibrosis have improved tremendously over the last 20 years. Children with cystic fibrosis routinely live into their 30s and 40s and even much longer in many cases. The important factor is to realize that as soon as the diagnosis is made, we begin to treat the child. Treating the child early with medications and therapies to improve and maintain the best lung function possible is critical to having a long and healthy life. In addition, it is very important for us to treat any problems with food digestion because if the child is not able to digest and absorb food and nutrients properly, they are not able to grow. Their immune systems are not strong and they are far more susceptible to other forms of the disease.
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