'Our aim is to improve equity of quality care and resources for all children with lung disease, no matter where they live or their type of disease.'
The spark
'I saw parents with children who had a chronic wet cough, which was distressing for them and the child, and I wanted to optimise their quality of life by improving management of this condition to achieve better outcomes for these children’s future lung and overall health.'
Research aim
'Finding ways to improve the management of cough-related illnesses in children such that parents tell us that our research has changed their lives.'
Real-world implications
'Improving the management of children’s chronic cough leads to better quality of life for them and their families through early diagnosis and treatment of chronic disease to help ensure future lung health.'
The challenge
'Our challenge is to overcome the lack of non-invasive easily obtainable biomarkers and diagnostic tools for assessment of lower airway infection and quantification of structural lung disease in children.'
Key achivements
- Changing the paradigm of the management of chronic cough in children using child-specific algorithms and methods.
- Describing a new diagnostic entity called protracted bacterial bronchitis which is now in all chronic cough guidelines globally and has a new ICD-10-AM code, with Associate Professor Julie Marchant.
- Improving the management of bronchiectasis such that we now know that child bronchiectasis is reversible which then leads to substantially better outcomes in adulthood, with Professor Yerkovich, Dr Goyal and other team members through our NHMRC Centre of Excellence.
Key publications
Chang AB, Fortescue R, Grimwood K, Alexopoulou E, Bell L, Boyd J, Bush A, Chalmers JD, Hill AT, Karadag B, Midulla F, McCallum GB, Powell Z, Snijders D, Song WJ, Tonia T, Wilson C, Zacharasiewicz A, Kantar A. European Respiratory Society guidelines for the management of children and adolescents with bronchiectasis. European Respiratory Journal. 2021 Aug 26;58(2):2002990. doi: 10.1183/13993003.02990-2020.
Chang AB, Bush A, Grimwood K. Bronchiectasis in children: Diagnosis and Treatment. Lancet 2018:392:866-79. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31554-X
Goyal V, Grimwood K, Byrnes CA, Morris PS, Masters IB, Ware RS, McCallum GB, Binks MJ, Marchant JM, van Asperen P, O'Grady KF, Champion A, Buntain HM, Petsky H, Torzillo PJ, CHANG AB. Amoxicillin-clavulanate versus azithromycin for respiratory exacerbations in children with bronchiectasis (BEST-2): a multicentre, double-blind, non-inferiority, randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2018 Oct 6;392(10154):1197-1206. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31723-9
News
A research team led by QUT Professor Anne Chang will conduct a multicentre controlled randomised trial to investigate whether nine months’ treatment with azithromycin (an antibiotic for bronchiectasis and pneumonia) reduces recurrent, protracted bacterial bronchitis and future bronchiectasis.