There were 630 pregnancies in the cohort; 404 received aspirin (108 received 150 mg/day and 296 received 75 mg/day), whereas 226 did not. There were 28 (4.4%) cases of preeclampsia and 47 (7.5%) cases of HDP in the cohort. No significant differences in maternal age (P¼.510), nulliparity (P¼.945), and chorionicity (P¼.700) were observed between the 75 mg/day and 150 mg/day aspirin groups. The incidence of preeclampsia was similar between the aspirin 150 mg/day and no aspirin groups (1.8% vs 3.1%, P¼.510). However, there was a trend toward a significant decrease in preeclampsia in those receiving aspirin 150 mg/day compared with 75 mg/day (1.8% vs 6.4%, P¼.067). There were no statistically significant differences between aspirin 150 mg/day and the no aspirin groups regarding the incidence of HDP (1.8% vs 5.3%, P¼.140), but the incidence of HDP was significantly lower in aspirin 150 mg/day group compared with the 75 mg/day group (1.8% vs 11.1%, P¼.003) (Figure 1). The incidence of HDP was significantly greater in the aspirin 75 mg/day group compared with no aspirin (11.1% vs 5.3%, P¼.018). We investigated the association of aspirin dose with HDP in a multivariable logistic regression model after adjusting for maternal age in years, chorionicity, and smoking during pregnancy. The reference group was the low-risk twin pregnancies who did not receive aspirin. The direction of the association changed from a significant increase in HDP (odds ratio, 2.01; 95% confidence interval, 1.03e4.18; P¼.048) to a nonsignificant decrease (odds ratio, 0.31; 95% confidence interval, 0.05e1.16; P¼.127) when the aspirin dose was increased from 75 mg/day to 150 mg/day. CONCLUSION:The incidence of hypertensive disorders in twin pregnancies with additional risk factors for preeclampsia was significantly lower in those receiving aspirin 150 mg/day compared with 75 mg/day.

Background International asthma guidelines recommend the monitoring of peak expiratory flow (PEF) as part of asthma self-management in children and adolescents who poorly perceive airflow obstruction, those with a history of severe exacerbations, or those who have difficulty controlling asthma. Measured with a peak flow meter, PEF represents a person’s maximum speed of expiration and helps individuals to follow their disease evolution and, ultimately, to prevent asthma exacerbations. However, patient adherence to regular peak flow meter use is poor, particularly in pediatric populations. To address this, we developed an interactive tablet-based game with a portable game controller that can transduce a signal from the user’s breath to generate a PEF value. Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate the concordance between PEF values obtained with the game controller and various measures derived from conventional pulmonary function tests (ie, spirometry) and to synthesize the participants’ feedback. Methods In this cross-sectional multicenter study, 158 children (aged 8-15 years old) with a diagnosis or suspicion of asthma performed spirometry and played the game in one of two hospital university centers. We evaluated the correlation between PEF measured by both the game controller and spirometry, forced expiratory volume at 1 second (FEV1), and forced expiratory flow at 25%-75% of pulmonary volume (FEF25-75), using Spearman correlation. A Bland-Altman plot was generated for comparison of PEF measured by the game controller against PEF measured by spirometry. A post-game user feedback questionnaire was administered and analyzed. Results The participants had a mean age of 10.9 (SD 2.5) years, 44% (71/158) were female, and 88% (139/158) were White. On average, the pulmonary function of the participants was normal, including FEV1, PEF, and FEV1/forced vital capacity (FVC). The PEF measured by the game controller was reproducible in 96.2% (152/158) of participants according to standardized criteria. The PEF measured by the game controller presented a good correlation with PEF measured by spirometry (r=0.83, P<.001), with FEV1 (r=0.74, P<.001), and with FEF25-75 (r=0.65, P<.001). The PEF measured by the game controller presented an expected mean bias of –36.4 L/min as compared to PEF measured by spirometry. The participants’ feedback was strongly positive, with 78.3% (123/157) reporting they would use the game if they had it at home. Conclusions The game controller we developed is an interactive tool appreciated by children with asthma, and the PEF values measured by the game controller are reproducible, with a good correlation to values measured by conventional spirometry. Future studies are necessary to evaluate the clinical impact this novel tool might have on asthma management and its potential use in an out-of-hospital setting.

Background: Asthma is a chronic respiratory condition that affects 10% of Canadian children and is often exacerbated by viral respiratory infections, prompting concerns about the severity of SARS-CoV-2 disease in children with asthma. We compared sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of children presenting to the emergency department and the incidence of these visits, before and during the pandemic. Methods: We included children aged 0 to 17 years presenting with asthma to 2 tertiary pediatric emergency departments in Montréal, Quebec, between the prepandemic (Jan. 1, 2017, to Mar. 31, 2020) and pandemic (Apr. 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021) periods. We compared the number of emergency department visits and hospital admissions with an interrupted time series analysis and compared the sociodemographic characteristics based on the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation (CIMD) and clinical characteristics (including triage level, intensive care admissions, etc.) with Mann–Whitney and χ 2 tests. Results: We examined 22 746 asthma-related emergency department visits. During the pandemic, a greater proportion of patients presented a triage level 1 or 2 (19.3% v. 14.7%) and were admitted to the intensive care unit (2.5% v. 1.3%). The patients’ CIMD quintile distributions did not differ between the 2 periods. We found a 47% decrease (relative risk [RR] 0.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.37 to 0.76) in emergency department visits and a 49% decrease (RR 0.51, 95% CI 0.34 to 0.76) in hospital admissions during the pandemic. Interpretation: The decrease in asthma-related emergency department visits was observed through the third wave of the pandemic, but children presented with a higher acuity and with no identified sociodemographic changes. Future studies are required to understand individual behaviours that may have led to the increased acuity at presentation observed in this study.