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Background: The number of children on home mechanical ventilation (HMV) has increased markedly in Europe and North America but little is known about the HMV use and outcomes in children in Turkey. Objective: To review clinical conditions and outcome of children who were discharged from the hospital on respiratory support. Methods: Thirty-four patients assessed at the Marmara University Hospital in Istanbul who had been receiving ventilatory support at home for more than 3 months were included in the study. Results: Thirty-four patients with a median age of 5.1 years were discharged home with ventilatory support. HMV was started in 2001 at our institution and the number of children treated has increased substantially since then (2001: n = 1, 2002: n = 3, 2003: n = 3, 2004: n = 2, 2005: n = 14, 2006: n = 11).Ventilatory support was started at a median age of 1.8 years and continued for 13 months. Eleven (32.4%) patients received invasive mechanical ventilation via tracheostomy and 23 (67.6%) patients received noninvasive mechanical ventilation. Sixteen children (47.1%) were on noninvasive mechanical ventilation via nasal mask while 7 (20.6%) used a face mask. Seven (20.6%) patients received ventilatory support for 24 h and 27 (79.4%) patients were supported only during sleep. Twenty-four (70.6%) children received supplemental oxygen in addition to ventilatory support. Three patients successfully came off ventilatory support; 11 patients died during follow-up. None of the patients had home nursing and there were no life-threatening complications. Conclusions: A rapidly rising trend of HMV use in chronic respiratory failure (CRF) has been observed in this study. HMV can be safely applied in selected children with CRF with close monitoring and proper follow-up in developing countries despite the lack of home nursing.

Summary. Swimming is often recommended as a sport because of its several benefits to health. It is also recommended in asthmatic children as a sport with a lower potential for prompting exercise-induced asthma. However, there is growing interest in the potentially harmful effects of repeated respiratory tract exposure to chlorinated products and the problem of possible swimmingrelated health hazards is gaining importance at international level. It is already known that acute exposure to chlorine gas as in swimming pool accidents causes lung damage and also that elite swimmers may have increased airway inflammation and bronchial hyperreactivity, probably as a result of repeated exposure to chlorine derivatives. Recently some studies have been conducted to investigate whether repeated exposure to chlorine by-products in recreational swimmers might also lead to lung damage. In addition, some studies have been lately published on the even more debated issue of the possible harmful effects of baby swimming on respiratory health. This article reviews and discusses data from the literature on the effects of chlorine derivatives in different categories of people routinely attending swimming pools. The need for longitudinal studies is emphasized to definitely clarify any role of chlorinated swimming pool attendance in the development of asthma in recreational swimmers.

IOS may be useful to evaluate pulmonary functions and detect acute exacerbations in CF patients. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2016;51:1151-1158. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In CF children with normal PFT or mild-to-moderate lung disease, nocturnal oxygenation may correlate with S-K, Brasfield and CT scores as well as PaO2, SaO2, z-score of weight and height.