Long-term Non-Invasive Ventilation in Infants: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BackgroundThe use of long-term non-invasive ventilation (NIV) to treat sleep and breathing disorders in children has increased substantially in the last decade; however, less data exist about its use in infants. Given that infants have distinct sleep and breathing patterns when compared to older children, the outcomes of infants on long-term NIV may differ as well. The aim of this study is to systematically review the use and outcomes of long-term NIV in infants.MethodsOvid Medline, Ovid Embase, CINAHL (via EbscoHOST), PubMed, and Wiley Cochrane Library were systematically searched from January 1990 to July 2017. Studies on infants using long-term NIV outside of an acute care setting were included. Data were extracted on study design, population characteristics, and NIV outcomes.ResultsA total of 327 studies were full-text reviewed, with final inclusion of 60. Studies were distributed across airway (40%), neuromuscular (28%), central nervous system (10%), cardio-respiratory (2%), and multiple (20%) disease categories. Of the 18 airway studies reporting on NIV outcomes, 13 (72%) reported improvements in respiratory parameters. Of the 12 neuromuscular studies exclusively on spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA1), six (50%) reported decreased hospitalizations and nine (75%) reported on mortality outcomes. Risk of bias was moderate to serious, and quality of the evidence was low to very low for all studies. Most studies had an observational design with no control group, limiting the potential for a meta-analysis.ConclusionThe outcomes reported in studies differed by the disease category being studied. Studies on airway conditions showed improvements in respiratory parameters for infants using NIV. Studies on neuromuscular disorder, which were almost exclusively on SMA1, reported decreased hospitalizations and prolonged survival. Overall, it appears that NIV is an effective long-term therapy for infants. However, the high risk of bias and low quality of the available evidence limited strong conclusions

Hispano-Americans in Europe: what do we know about their health status and determinants? A scoping review.

BACKGROUND: Policy makers and health practitioners are in need of guidance to respond to the growing geographic mobility of Hispano-American migrants in Europe. Drawing from contributions from epidemiology, social sciences, demography, psychology, psychiatry and economy, this scoping review provides an up-to-date and comprehensive synthesis of studies addressing the health status and determinants of this population. We describe major research gaps and suggest specific avenues of further inquiry. METHODS: We identified systematically papers that addressed the concepts "health" and "Hispano Americans" indexed in five data bases from Jan 1990 to May 2014 with no language restrictions. We screened the 4,464 citations retrieved against exclusion criteria and classified 193 selected references in 12 thematic folders with the aid of the reference management software ENDNOTE X6. After reviewing the full text of all papers we extracted relevant data systematically into a table template to facilitate the synthesising process. RESULTS: Most studies focused on a particular disease, leaving unexplored the interlinkages between different health conditions and how these relate to legislative, health services, environmental, occupational, and other health determinants. We elucidated some consistent results but there were many heterogeneous findings and several popular beliefs were not fully supported by empirical evidence. Few studies adopted a trans-national perspective and many consisted of cross-sectional descriptions that considered "Hispano-Americans" as a homogeneous category, limiting our analysis. Our results are also constrained by the availability and varying quality of studies reviewed./nCONCLUSIONS:/nBurgeoning research has produced some consistent findings but there are huge gaps in knowledge. To prevent unhelpful generalisations we need a more holistic and nuanced understanding of how mobility, ethnicity, income, gender, legislative status, employment status, working conditions, neighbourhood characteristics and social status intersect with demographic variables and policy contexts to influence the health of the diverse Hispano-American populations present in Europe