Wheezing Early in Life

This book provides practical guidelines for pediatric wheezing management and helps readers to navigate through the available information with a global, interdisciplinary approach, tracking the wheezing phenomenon, from genetics to environment, and from infections to allergy. The comprehensive coverage of current knowledge on asthma and wheezing-related conditions in children, aims to shift to a new paradigm: asthma primary prevention. Wheezing during the first years of life is globally a very common condition, mainly related with virus infections of the airways: the difficulty in determining who is more likely to be affected, and whether the immune system will overcome it, has led to enduring efforts and investigations, including environmental, and genetic. Lately even artificial intelligence has been applied to gain full understanding. Specific chapters are devoted to embryonic development and maturation of the lung; lung function in infancy, its determinants and tracking to adulthood; preterm birth and its impact on lung; viral airway infections and their effect on the lung and on the inception of allergy; immunological development of the lung; genetic susceptibility and environmental risk or protective factors affecting wheezing; management and potential for prevention at the three levels. Written by renowned experts from over the world, this book will be valued by paediatricians, allergologists, pulmonologists, general and family practitioners, in their day-to-day clinical work.