Dr Paul McNamara is leading a Sparks project to develop a test for aspiration in children with cerebral palsy.

He is a Senior Lecturer in Child Health and an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine at the Institute of Child Health, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Liverpool.

Aspiration is when foreign material such as food or saliva enter the lungs. This can lead to serious breathing difficulties, infections and damage to the lungs. Dr McNamara explains the potential impact of his work.

“I’m privileged to have a diverse role, spending half my time doing clinical work as a respiratory paediatrician and the other half doing research.

My clinical interest in aspiration lung disease stems from seeing large numbers of children with cerebral palsy and breathing problems, often presumed to be due to aspiration, in clinics, on the wards and in intensive care.

The problem

‘Aspiration’ is a chest or breathing problem caused by children inhaling either their stomach contents or saliva into their lungs. It’s a big problem in children with neuro-disability who often have trouble swallowing and coughing, and who can’t protect their airways.

It’s also an area that’s very much under-researched. This is partly because it’s often not easy to diagnose aspiration because there are no good tests for this condition, and partly because the children who tend to aspirate are all very different. Some of these children have chest symptoms as severe as those with other chronic chest conditions such as cystic fibrosis.

Focused treatments

Every winter, large numbers of children end up in intensive care, where there is often doubt as to what is causing them to be so sick. If we can successfully develop a test for aspiration, we’d be able to focus and direct our treatments in a way that we can’t do at present. This could potentially save these children from exposure to quite nasty and unnecessary drugs, surgery and other treatments.

This is a great field to work in because, potentially, we are going to make a big difference to children’s lives now and in the future. We are also generating many ideas that could be translated into new research. Sparks funding has been vital to our work. Without it, we wouldn’t be in a situation where we can realistically hope to benefit such a large group of children. The Sparks mission is spot on!”