The Hereditary Angioedema Unit (UAEH) of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital’s Allergology Department has been treating patients with this disorder for more than 25 years.

UAEH outpatients are treated by allergology specialists in a multidisciplinary manner in the Outpatient Clinic in the Old Nursing School and in the Children’s and Women’s Hospital, ensuring transference and continuity of care from childhood through to adulthood for this genetic, lifelong condition.

The Unit is made up of popular, immunologists, geneticists, gynaecologists, maxillofacial surgeons, pharmacists and nurses, who are responsible for:

• diagnosing and monitoring patients
• conducting immunological and genetic studies
• providing health education to ensure that patients are capable of recognising angioedema episodes and self-administering their treatment
• treating patients in special situations such as pregnancy, delivery, the postpartum period and during complex dental procedures.

Depending on the type of care to be given to patients with diagnosed hereditary angioedema and their profile, they should be treated by the following divisions and/or units:

Allergology Outpatient Clinic and Day Hospital

The specialists who work in the adult and paediatric allergology sections are responsible for treating patients aged 16 and under in the Children’s Hospital areas and subsequently facilitating their transfer and continuity of care with monitoring to the adult care departments in the Old Nursing School and the Allergology Day Hospital in the General Hospital.

The Hereditary Angioedema Unit (UAEH) offers an outpatient service to monitor patients with this disease: the Outpatient Clinic on the second floor of the Old Nursing School. Also, as it is a multidisciplinary unit, and depending on the type of patient (child, adult, pregnant woman), it provides care in a number of departments and units in the Children’s and Women’s Hospital, the General Hospital and A&E.

The nursing team specialises in education and specific care for patients with this disease.

A&E Care

Emergency care is provided at the Children’s Hospital for patients up to the age of 16 and at the General Hospital from the age of 17. The professionals who work in the A&Es have been trained to recognise the symptoms of this disease and to quickly provide its specific treatment.

Maxillofacial Surgery Outpatient Clinic

When a patient needs a complex dental or maxillofacial procedure they will be assessed by the hospital’s maxillofacial surgeons and their operation will be organised with the suitable prophylaxis.

Patients who have hereditary angioedema and who are pregnant

The Obstetrics, Foetal Medicine and Anaesthesia Departments have created a Working Unit for High-Risk Pregnancies for women with hereditary angioedema with the aim of monitoring the well-being of mother and child during pregnancy and of providing care during the delivery and postpartum period in accordance with a protocol specific to their type of hereditary angioedema and clinical situation. Care is also provided for high-risk postpartum cases.

In parallel to these services, there is also a reproductive counselling clinic for women with hereditary angioedema. The clinic is part of the Hereditary Angioedema Unit, and is that provided in conjunction with Gynaecology in the Outpatient Clinics of the Children’s and Women’s Hospital.

In this clinic an allergist and a gynaecologist combine their expertise to determine, in accordance with the patient’s clinical situation and type of hereditary angioedema, the possible effects of their having children. Their mission is to provide information and advice in relation to family planning and the reproductive possibilities of the patients living with this disease.

Our Paediatric Emergency Unit attends to patients up to the age of 16, except for children with chronic diseases requiring very specific treatment who may be attended to by our Unit even when they are over this age limit.

Besides making visits to assess children's emergency medical or surgical pathology, and appointments for patients who require clinical monitoring after our consultation, we also have an Observation ward for admitting patients who require hospitalisation.

Thanks to the coordination between the Nursing, Paediatric Emergency, Traumatology, Anaesthesiology, Radiology and Paediatric ICU teams and many other professionals, we are a benchmark centre in AITP (Initial Care for Paediatric Trauma).

When it comes to teaching, the Unit trains resident doctors (MIR) in Paediatrics and Family Medicine, as well as resident nurses in Paediatric Nursing. The Unit also plays a key role in training undergraduate Medical and Nursing students, as well practical training placements for nursing assistants. We take part in numerous continuous-teaching and training activities within and without the Hospital (advanced paediatrics life-support courses and AITP, joint courses with Primary Care, internal Hospital courses, sessions with several Units and Services, care simulations on children with multiple trauma and children in a critical condition, etc.).

As for research, we are part of the Spanish Society of Paediatric Emergency Medicine (SEUP) and its research network (RiSEUP), and we take part in numerous multi-centre projects and clinical trials.

The Unit undertakes training activities that are crucial for paediatric residents and their specific areas in their first year of residency (such as obligatory rotation) and it is then especially interesting for those doctors who are about to finish their residency, as it allows them and their tutors to know how much theoretical, practical and communicative knowledge they have acquired, so that this can be complemented where necessary.

The members of this unit carry out a wide variety of external consultations: clinical follow-up of admitted patients who need care in Hospital Paediatrics before being transferred to Primary Paediatric Care, visits to difficult-to-diagnose or imprecisely diagnosed outpatients, patients with "brief, unexplained resolved episodes", Social Paediatrics, vascular anomalies, endocrinological alterations.

Unit paediatricians are lecturers at the UAB's Faculty of Medicine, responsible for teaching theoretical and practical paediatrics to future doctors.

In terms of scientific research, the Paediatric Hospitalisation Unit is becoming more and more active in carrying out research work based on care and clinical-testing activities.

Portfolio of Services

• Care for paediatric patients, from babies to adolescents, who are suffering from acute paediatric illnesses, which, in particular, include infectious, respiratory and digestive pathologies.
• Paediatric consultancy and support for paediatric surgical services, especially the Paediatric Surgery Department and the paediatric units of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Neurosurgery, ENT and Maxillofacial surgery.
• Outpatient clinics for released patients who require monitoring, patients with complex diagnoses referred from Paediatric Emergencies and Primary Care.
• “No-patient” paediatric clinic for SAP Muntanya Primary Care. 
• Outpatient clinic for children who have suffered "brief, unexplained resolved episodes" or are monitored for apnoea at home, as well as monitoring babies with a family history of sudden death.
• Social Paediatrics

Education and Training

Training programme for paediatric residents by means of their 4-month obligatory rotation during their first year, and optional rotations in their fourth year of residency. Resident doctors undertake a theoretical and practical programme in order to obtain basic knowledge of Hospital Paediatrics.

There are weekly clinical sessions run by the Unit and periodic joint sessions with other paediatric units in the hospital.

Research

Research studies into paediatric illnesses in hospitals (infectious, respiratory, coagulation, etc.) and a variety of clinical tests.