Ballarat Base Hospital pediatricians are among those at 40 sites across Australia and New Zealand recruiting patients to test a medication designed to boost children's immune systems and hopefully prevent hospital visits among preschool aged children with recurring wheeze or asthma.

PhD student Dr Jessica Costa-Pinto, who is coordinating the Assessing the Reduction of Recurrent admissions using OM-85 for the treatment of preschool Wheeze (ARROW) trial, said finding ways to prevent young children from needing to go to hospital was the aim.

"ARROW is a really important trial that has the potential to change the way we treat children with wheeze, not just in Australia but throughout the world," Dr Costa-Pinto said.

Wheeze is diagnosed when children have wheezing or whistling in their chest when they breathe out and is associated with laboured breathing.

"In pre-school aged children the majority of wheezing is triggered by viral infection, particularly in winter, and children with wheezing can have back to back infections ... which means for some families they are in and out of hospital all the time which is really hard.

"Wheeze is the most common reason why preschool age children need to be admitted to hospital in Australia and New Zealand and one of the leading causes of hospital presentation worldwide ... at a cost of $130 million a year to health care system and a lot of stress and disruption to families."

About 2300 patients will be recruited to be part the three year trial, run by Deakin University and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, which will see children take an oral medication to boost their immune system.

Children will be given OM-85, an oral medication that works by building up immunity in the same way that children who grow up in environments with lots of exposure to bacteria, like a farm with livestock, are less likely to develop wheezing illnesses or asthma.

"It contains broken down bacteria from 21 different strains and what it does is when taken orally is it triggers a cascade of immune response that boosts natural immunity of children help them to fight viral infection ... and reduce inflammation in the airways of children with wheeze triggered by viral infection ," Dr Costa-Pinto said.

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"We know that children who are exposed to environments with lots of bacteria when they are young, kids who grow up on farms with animals, have lower rates of wheeze illness and asthma because of that exposure."

Royal Children's Hospital director of general pediatrics Dr Sarah McNab said the ARROW study was exciting.

"Hospital admissions are very stressful for families, and they pose huge cost to the Australian health care system," Dr McNab said.

"ARROW is a new approach to an old problem, and it is exciting because we are working on boosting healthy immune responses rather than using steroids and other anti-inflammatory medications on children."

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