Paediatric Pulmonology

Paediatric Pulmonology

The Department of Paediatric Pulmonology at Apollo Children’s Hospitals aims to provide high quality care to children with respiratory disorders.

The most common respiratory disorders that we treat include:

• Asthma
• Allergic airway disorder (allergic rhinitis / sneezing, chronic cough etc)
• Cystic Fibrosis
• Bronchopulmonary dysplasia
• Congenital lung malformations (birth defect of the lungs)
• Bronchiectasis
• Primary ciliary dyskinesia
• Interstitial lung diseases
• Respiratory complications of systemic diseases
• Infections like tuberculosis, pneumonia and empyema

Services

• Paediatric flexible bronchoscopy:We are one of the few centres in Chennai that provide this specialised service. This is the camera test (like endoscopy) to view the windpipe and all its branches. This helps to diagnose various conditions and also take fluid samples from the lung to detect various infections
• Pulmonary function testing: This is a test to measure the lung volumes that aids diagnosis of various conditions

The Pulmonology team works in close liaison with the following teams for conditions which demand a holistic approach to care:

• Paediatric Intensivists: We work together for the extremely sick patients requiring high dependency care or ventilator support for lung diseases like life threatening asthma or respiratory failure due to various causes.
• Paediatric Surgeons:We work with a team of highly skilled paediatric surgeons in managing certain lung conditions like congenital malformations of the lung, lung cysts / tumour which needs excision, chest drain for empyema etc.
• Paediatric Oncologists / Immunologists: We work together as a team in managing immune deficient patients who have recurrent chest infections and need ongoing support in managing the infections. Lung tumours (benign or malignant) are effectively managed under our joint care.
• Allied specialists:We also have in our team a trained physiotherapist who deals with patients requiring chest physiotherapy eg. Cystic fibrosis. Our dietician provides support and advises families of children who require special dietetic requirement for their lung condition.