Dr Debra Boyer: Despite Setbacks, Some Pediatric Pulmonary Treatments Have Improved

Adults and children with cystic fibrosis have seen treatment improvements, despite treatment limitations for other respiratory diseases, says Debra Boyer, MD, pediatric pulmonologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and co-chair of the American Thoracic Society International Conference Committee.

Transcript

How have pulmonology treatments for pediatric patients evolved?

Despite what I've said before about some of the limitations, things have evolved tremendously. I think cystic fibrosis (CF) is a prime example. I think all of the work that's been done on the CF modulator therapies; you can't even quantify certainly the emotions that have gone into this, but kids are doing so much better, and adults are now doing so much better with cystic fibrosis because of those early interventions. Similarly, maybe not as giant steps in things like asthma and some of the other conditions that we treat, you've seen some improvements in those as well. But cystic fibrosis is by far the one with the biggest steps that we've seen.