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Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a significant cause of respiratory infections in young children. Since 2021, RSV has been a notifiable disease in Australia. However, current surveillance systems focus on hospitalised RSV, with limited surveillance at a community level through primary care clinics. This approach only captures RSV requiring hospitalisation. Less severe illnesses, while not captured, may have significant social and economic impacts including the associated cost of care and absenteeism. The aim of this study is to establish an understanding of the broader burden of RSV in young children in a community setting.
Vaccine hesitancy and suboptimal vaccine uptake pose significant threats to public health, but modifiable psychological factors underpinning them are under-investigated. We examined the prevalence of spontaneous emotional mental imagery relating to infectious diseases and perinatal vaccines and its unique associations with vaccine hesitancy and uptake behaviour.
Prebiotic dietary supplementation has been shown to improve glucose homeostasis in type 2 diabetes patients. The aim of this analysis was to determine whether pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) modifies the effect of prebiotic supplementation from mid-pregnancy on reducing the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus
Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is a proven curative therapy for children with high-risk myeloid malignancies. Disease relapse, transplant-related mortality and graft versus host disease (GvHD) are the main causes of treatment failure and death post-transplant. The optimum pretransplant conditioning regimen is yet to be defined. There is limited data regarding the use of busulfan, fludarabine and melphalan as a myeloablative conditioning regimen in children receiving HSCT for myeloid malignancies.
Childhood emotional abuse (CEA) has been linked to response-focused emotion regulation in adulthood. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unexplored. This pre-registered study examined whether shame mediates the association between CEA history and aversive cognitive perseveration (ACP), including brooding rumination, experiential avoidance and emotional non-acceptance, in adulthood.
Functional studies of how early-life interventions shape the airway microbiome remain scarce. Here, we performed metagenomic sequencing of 704 longitudinal nasal swabs from infants with and without cystic fibrosis (CF) to construct and characterize a non-redundant gene atlas of the infant nasal microbiome. We aimed to determine how the nasal microbiome is perturbed by early therapies, as CF is commonly treated with inhaled hypertonic saline to improve mucociliary clearance.
Allergic diseases are rising worldwide, especially in childhood, and their clinical diversity increasingly exposes the limits of traditional phenotype-based classifications. Genetic susceptibility, environmental exposures, epithelial barrier biology, and immune pathways interact to shape highly variable disease trajectories and treatment responses. In this context, precision medicine is no longer only an aspirational concept, but a practical effort to define meaningful endotypes, identify clinically useful biomarkers, and connect biological insight to prevention and care.
Neonatal sepsis-induced cardiovascular dysfunction includes impaired myocardial function (which may be systolic and/or diastolic) and vasoregulatory failure (which may lead to vasodilation or vasoconstriction). The haemodynamic response in neonatal sepsis may therefore be hyperdynamic or hypodynamic, and the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms are heterogenous.
The everyday use of plastic products exposes us to plastic-associated chemicals (PACs), which have been associated with risks to human health. We present the results of the Plastic Exposure Reduction Transforms Health Trial, with an observational cohort of 211 Australian participants and a 7-day pilot randomized controlled trial in 60 participants. Intervention groups received combinations of plastic-free kitchenware, low-plastic personal-care products and food sourced from more than 100 producers that minimized all plastic touchpoints from paddock to plate, while the control group received no intervention.
The pathogenesis of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is poorly understood, limiting the development of immune-modulating therapies to treat disease and prevent progressive heart damage. Here, participants with definite ARF were compared to other severe acute paediatric conditions and matched healthy controls by profiling circulating immune molecules and cells to inform disease mechanisms and potential druggable pathways.