Respiratory

The goal of this study is to see if physical activity in high air pollution is worse than rest in high air pollution.

SEARCH-ED is a research study which is running in Emergency Department (ED) of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. The aim of the study is to find out if using a computer programme can help doctors diagnose heart and lung problems from chest x-rays. We want to compare how many people are diagnosed with heart or lung problems for the first time when doctors have access to the computer programme results, in comparison to when they don't.

This observational study aims to investigate the characteristics of gut microbiota and their associations with immune and nutritional indicators in children with different respiratory health statuses. A total of 120 children will be enrolled and categorized into four groups: children with Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP), children with acute respiratory tract infections without Mycoplasma pneumoniae (NMP), children with recurrent respiratory tract infections (RRTIs), and healthy controls. By comparing gut microbiota composition and diversity, as well as immune- and nutrition-related indicators across groups, this study seeks to clarify the potential role of intestinal dysbiosis and host immune-nutritional interactions in the pathogenesis and clinical manifestations of pediatric respiratory tract infections.

Healthcare workers measure heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, oxygen levels and breathing rate to monitor how unwell a patient is. All these apart from breathing rate are now normally measured by machines. But there still isn't a machine that does this well enough for breathing rate to be used in most places. The machines that do exist are either uncomfortable or don't work well on patients who are moving. Instead, a healthcare worker will count the number of breaths a patient takes. This needs staff time and isn't very accurate. It is known that changes in breathing rate can happen any time. But healthcare systems normally only measure it every few hours because it takes time. Breathing rate could be monitored all the time, we might pick up people getting sick earlier and be able to treat them more quickly, which could save lives. A team at the University of Southampton has made a small device, called a PneumoRator, that gets stuck to onto a person's chest. Once stuck there it can measure their breathing rate and store or send that information wirelessly. The device has been tested on healthy volunteers but has never been tested on patients in hospital. In this study the team will put the device on patients having major operations. The investigators will record information already collected about patients during normal care. This includes their breathing rate using the best measurement we have, where a patient's breathing is measured by a gas they breathe out. The gas is carbon dioxide, and the measurement is called capnography. This way of measuring is only used in operating theatres and intensive care units but is a good way to check if the PneumoRator is accurate. The investigators want to attach the PneumoRator to patient's chests before they go to sleep for their operation and leave it there for the first few days after their operation. This will let them see how the PneumoRator compares to capnography and manual breath counting. It will also let them see how the device works at different times in the patient's journey. The investigators will look at the time when patients are asleep, when breathing is controlled by a machine. Then when patients wake up investigators can measure with both capnography and the PneumoRator. Finally, when patients go to the high dependency ward, investigators will compare it against manual counting. The study team will also ask patients how they found wearing the device and any problems they found. With this information the investigators hope to show the PenumoRator is accurate at measuring breathing rate and comfortable for patients. This will help them get the device approved for use in hospitals and other places where breathing rate needs to be measured accurately.

This is a single-center, parallel-arm, blind, sham-controlled, feasibility randomized controlled trial (RCT) to be conducted in healthy cesarean-born children. Eligible children will be randomized 1:1 to have their nose swabbed with either maternal vaginal secretions or a sterile swab (intervention vs. control group, respectively). The main hypothesis is that conducting an RCT assessing the utility of vaginal seeding in modifying the early-life upper respiratory tract (URT) microbiome of children born by cesarean section (C-section) is feasible and that the intervention is safe.

The goal of this observational study is to assess the potential non-invasive tools (e.g. regional ventilation, respiratory muscle response, lung mechanic's parameters) to identify the risk of failure when using high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) or non-invasive ventilation (NIV). The main question, it aims to answer is: Does abnormal regional ventilation could predict HFNC or NIV failure?