Fall 1998 ~ Newsletter
Cystic Fibrosis and Lung Transplants
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More Comments From The 1997 CF Conference
The annual North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference was held in Nashville, Tennessee, last year. Our CF Center was honored to have 12 staff representatives from Children's Hospital. Below, are some insights a few of our staff members would like to share.Staci Thrasher, LGSWIt was a wonderful experience and exciting to meet people from all over the world who are trying to develop new therapies for cystic fibrosis. One topic that was of great interest to me was the idea of transitioning adult patients to an adult CF center. Many states now have adult CF Centers and the CF Foundation is requiring that all states have an adult center within the next several years. We do not have one in Alabama; however, we are beginning the process. This is going to take a lot of hard work from the CF Team as well as from the adult and adolescent patients who will be transitioning to an adult center. This will be a big change, but a positive one if we work together to ensure a smooth transition.Lisa Wing, RRTI realized that people from around the world attended when I met people from Norway, Israel, England, and South Africa. I later found out that more than 2,700 people were in attendance. The conference was five days long, so I attended many lectures and workshops. One of the big problems world-wide was finding alternative chest clearance techniques for adolescents and adults. There have been new products and alternative chest clearance techniques used in the last few years. Measuring sputum production using other chest clearance techniques is good, but not the measure of successful chest clearance, especially if your pulmonary functions are dropping.So what are we going to do for adolescents and adults who are searching for some alternative chest clearance technique besides chest physical therapy? We believe PEP therapy is a good choice for those searching for something different and effective.Tina Givens, BS, RRTI was amazed at the tremendous amount of scientific research that was presented at this conference. The airway clearance techniques training class was the most applicable to me. It was evident that the issue of airway clearance techniques is still controversial worldwide.Since all of the research submitted did not compare all of the same criteria, it made it hard to decide which method would be best. It is obvious that the more research that is widely available, the easier our decisions will be. Our gold standard is still hand chest physiotherapy. I hope that before too long we will have time to do reviews and come up with alternative measures for airway clearance.