Pediatric pulmonology is a specialty that covers all forms of diseases or conditions that affect the lungs and airways these include conditions such as asthma, cough, pneumonia, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, cystic fibrosis, alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency, shortness of breath with activity, allergic rhinitis as well as conditions that affect the normal development of the airway including congenital malformations such as tracheal stenosis, sequestration, pulmonary sequestration, congenital cystic adenomatoid malformations, pulmonary hypoplasia and aplasia and conditions associated with delayed maturation of the airways including tracheomalacia and, laryngomalacia.
As pediatric pulmonologist, we specialize in managing all of these conditions and able to provide a broad overview of management while working with other specialists. Several of these conditions require the use of procedures and technologies for which pulmonologist specifically trained including pulmonary function testing as well as flexible fiberoptic bronchoscopy.
In managing conditions such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia, one of the unique advantages of the pediatric pulmonologist is that we begin to manage these infants while they are still in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and continue to manage them as outpatients. We form a bridge between the high level intensive care that they receive in the hospital and the continued requirement that they have for continuing the care as outpatients.
When managing conditions such as asthma as well as allergic rhinitis the advantage of the pediatric pulmonologist is having someone who can fully understand both conditions and determine to what degree each is contributing to respiratory symptoms and the patient. By being able to manage multiple conditions at the same time we are able to consolidate care and by so doing save patients and the parents valuable time and money.