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The benefits of research into ChILD will help to:
- Increase recognition of ChILD by doctors in the community and the more information known about a disease, the faster a diagnosis is made.
- Inform the development of targeted treatments for ChILD.
Establishing a patient registry (data collected from patients across multiple centres) is an effective method of collecting information about these conditions.
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Clinical research trials into two of the most commonly used medications - Hydroxychloroquine and Prednisolone - have been approved.
This research will aim to provide evidence for:
- In which types of ChILD, these medications could be used, by analysing the benefits and side effects.
- When is the best time to start using these medications and when to stop.
- The trial on Hydroxychloroquine is ongoing in Germany and will be expanded soon to Poland, Austria, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
- The trial on Prednisolone (in hypersensitivity pneumonitis) was started in Germany, however had to be suspended due to lack of resources from grants (see chILD-EU website).
Research
Research into rare lung diseases is very important. With ChILD, adding together all the individual cases within the different ChILD conditions can give a more significant population to undertake research with. For ChILD it is especially important for further research to take place as it is often a long and difficult journey to reach an initial diagnosis.