Pediatric Patients With Respiratory Diseases Need More Resources, Says Dr Debra Boyer

More innovation for children who have respiratory diseases in areas like testing, medication, and equipment are needed, said Debra Boyer, MD, pediatric pulmonologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and co-chair of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference Committee.

Transcript

What are some of the unique challenges for treating pediatric patients in the pulmonology field?

To me, one of the biggest areas is the fact that things are not done, tested, available as much in pediatrics as they are in adult medicine and adult respiratory diseases. Whether that's equipment, thinking about bronchoscopy use and interventions, there's just not enough of that equipment and things available to be able to do what we might want to do in pediatrics.

Similarly, a lot of medications are not approved in children that are available in adults. That also limits what kind of therapeutics we can do in pediatrics. So, it's an area that I think we all need to advocate for. We need to advocate for more testing and more availability, for all of those things for our pediatric patients.