Respiratory

Bronchial thermoplasty for severe asthma

This is a new guideline on bronchial thermoplasty from NICE on bronchial thermoplasty for severe asthma. NICE advise that it can be used.This procedure reduces the smooth muscle mass lining th...

Diagnosing and managing cystic fibrosis

This is a new guideline from NICE on diagnosing and managing cystic fibrosis. Most of this guideline will be much more relevant to secondary care, so I'm just covering the list of possible presentatio...

Nice | Tuberculosis (TB)

This is an updated guideline from NICE on managing tuberculosis. I guess the relevance will be largely related to where you work. There isn't any really big change here, but there are lots of things t...

Nice | Bronchiolitis in children

This is a new guideline from Nice on diagnosing and managing bronchiolitis. It really doesn't add much new as it mainly lays out criteria for referral and this is just around recognition of a sick chi...

Nice | Diagnosis and management of pneumonia

Nice's latest guideline looks at the diagnosis and management of pneumonia. I was surprised by the stats here, so I'm including those. The 2 new things here are the use of CRP in deciding when to use ...

Wheeze in preschool children

A very common condition, affecting 25% of infants before the age of 18 months, and one which we will see a lot of over the forthcoming months. This helpful BMJ Review summarises the evidence on the ma...

BTS/Sign | Asthma

This is an updated guideline from SIGN and the British Thoracic Society. There really isn't anything substantial that has changed for us in this guideline. The full guideline (page 47) has a useful se...

Nice | Exhaled nitric oxide measurement in asthma

This new guideline from NICE looks at measuring exhaled Nitric Oxide (eNO) in asthma. I have never heard of this, so I'll just lay out the guidance and then give a bit more of an explanation as to wha...

Nice | Rivaroxaban for treating PE and preventing recurrent embolism

Another guideline about Rivaroxaban. Guidance was published in 2012 advising that Rivaroxaban could be used in the treatment of DVT. At that point, there was no guidance about its use in PEs. Since th...

Nice | Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

This guideline is mainly useful to us in terms of when to consider Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis , but there was some information in here that I was not aware of that is important. When to consider Id...

Omalizumab in severe allergic asthma

This guideline advises that Omalizumab can be used in the treatment of asthma. It is a monoclonal antibody that binds to IgE and is given every 2 to 4 weeks subcut. We may start seeing patients treate...

Whooping Cough – HPA Guidance

Bordetella Pertussis from Sanofi Pasteur (flikr website) This is a summary of guidance from the HPA on how to manage Whooping Cough. A member forwarded this on to me and requested I pass on the inform...

Air travel with a respiratory disorder

This is a long guideline. It is mainly going to be useful if a patient asks specifically about air travel, but it may be something that should be raised with some patients at their annual reviews. It ...

Nice | Tuberculosis

This is quite a complex, meaty guideline, with lots of flow-charts. Remember to consider if a newly registering patient should be screened and remember BCG in neonates at risk, but otherwise I would s...