Protecting youth from the vaping epidemic.

E-cigarettes (e-cigs) have been initially proposed as an aid to smoke cessation in adults, whereas they turned into a paradoxical preferential gateway to tobacco and nicotine initiation for adolescents naïve to tobacco. More than 25% of US school-age students is an e-cigs user with a steep rise over the past years. A marketing strategy on media and social network targeting youths, in the absence of rules to protect the pediatric users, resulted in an unprecedented trend up in tobacco consumption among adolescents and gave rise to a new generation of nicotine-addicted teenagers. Flavored e-cigs liquids and aerosols contain airway irritants and toxicants, that, in turn, produced an increase in asthma prevalence and its exacerbations among adolescents. In addition, since August 2019 an outbreak of e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) has been described. In view of this, e-cigs must no longer be considered harmless, especially in adolescents never used a tobacco product before. This is a call-for-action to establish effective rules and campaigns targeting youths aimed to limit their access to e-cigs, thereby preserving the potential benefit in quitting tobacco addiction described in adults. Behavioral and educational actions, out of the conventional primary care setting, have been described as a model for a youth-centered campaign. We call for stricter regulations on e-cigs products, with respect to their marketing to the youngest ones, along with public health and primary care interventions that could curb the spread of this "vaping" epidemic.

A telemedicine instrument for home monitoring of patients with chronic respiratory diseases.

We developed a telemedicine instrument for home monitoring of subjects with respiratory diseases. The instrument directly measures blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate, but the most relevant aspect is that it also acts as digital recorder of parameters coming from several external instruments (spirometer, capnometer, NIBP device, etc.). It also connects to all pulmonary ventilators. The instrument main board includes five slots, which are used to insert the measuring boards (saturation and ventilation boards) and the interface boards (connecting the external instruments). Depending on patient's needs, only the proper measuring/interface boards are mounted, thus allowing maximum flexibility and cost saving. The instrument has several I/O units, and especially an internal modem for direct connection to the Internet through TCP/IP protocol. The instrument was extensively tested, and preliminary trials were performed over fifteen patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Wireless home monitoring and health care activity management through the Internet in patients with chronic diseases.

A project was developed for the creation of an Internet-based network aimed at improved management of home care activities in brain-injured children. At the patient's side, a home care unit was provided, made of a portable medical device, and a tablet PC. Measured clinical data were blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, breath rate and quantity of movement. Thanks to device portability, the patient was free to move while measurements were taken. At prescribed time intervals, measured data were automatically transmitted to the tablet PC via Bluetooth. From the tablet PC, data were transmitted remotely to a Service Centre (via ADSL or GPRS) and made available for consultation by health care professionals through the project Web portal. At the portal, other functionalities were also available, both for patients and families, and for professionals (such as weekly planning agenda, access to relevant information resources, communication tools). Information was delivered for the right participant through a workflow engine. A first trial involving nine patients was performed for two months. At the end, although some improvements were suggested, good acceptance was detected, and 78% of patients and families claimed to be interested in further use of the platform.