Areas of expertise

All aspects of paediatric respiratory medicine, including severe asthma, cystic fibrosis, recurrent chest infections and severe infant wheezing.

Research projects

Current research projects include the detection of pulmonary hypertension in children with cystic fibrosis, early lung disease in newborn screened infants with cystic fibrosis, follow up of neonates on home oxygen, fitness to fly testing in children with congenital heart disease, itraconazole and voriconazole levels in children with cystic fibrosis and audit of CF newborn screening in Pan Thames area.

Qualifications and background

After graduating from University College London and Westminster Medical School (University of London), Dr Balfour-Lynn trained in general paediatrics at Westminster Children’s Hospital, Queen Mary’s Hospital Roehampton, Northwick Park Hospital and St Bartholomew’s Hospital. The majority of his specialist respiratory training was carried out at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, where he worked in a number of departments including respiratory medicine, intensive care, infection and immunology and heart-lung transplantation.

Dr Balfour-Lynn also spent two years in full-time research for his MD thesis, Host Defence Factors in Wheezy Infants with Respiratory Infections,
University of London 1994. He is on the NHS specialist register for paediatrics and is fully accredited in paediatrics with a special interest in respiratory disease.

Other posts

• Director of paediatric cystic fibrosis at Royal Brompton Hospital and a staff governor for the Trust
• Honorary senior lecturer at Imperial College School of Medicine
• Consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital
• Visiting consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine at the Mater Dei Hospital in Malta
• Member of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust Medical Advisory Committee
• Member of the British Thoracic Society Specialist Advisory Group on cystic fibrosis and home oxygen
• The UK representative on American Thoracic Society Pediatric International Relations Committee
• North Thames regional adviser for paediatric respiratory medicine
• Past president of the British Paediatric Respiratory Society (BPRS)  

Teacher

Dr Balfour-Lynn runs paediatric bronchoscopy courses at Royal Brompton Hospital every two years. He has lectured at the annual Royal Society of Medicine cystic fibrosis symposium since 2007 and also organises the event. He also taught sessions on flexible bronchoscopy and how to lavage and biopsy as part of the Royal Brompton Hospital’s bronchoscopy course held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2009 and Ain Shams University, Cairo in 2004.

International reputation

Dr Balfour-Lynn is a regular expert speaker at medical conferences in the UK and overseas. Recent lectures include; The right heart and pulmonary hypertension in CF, European CF conference, June 2011; How to manage complicated pneumonia, sixth International Course on Pediatric Pulmonology (CIPP), June 2011, Versailles, France; Home oxygen for children - unanswered questions, British Thoracic Society Winter Meeting, December 2010; and How to improve the level of clinical evidence in orphan lung diseases - lessons to be learnt from cystic fibrosis, The European Respiratory Society Congress, Barcelona, Spain, September 2010.

He will be speaking at the Argentinian Respiratory Congress, Buenos Aires in October 2011 and at the CF Worldwide Middle East Conference, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in December 2011. 

Memberships of societies and colleges

• Fellow Royal College Paediatrics and Child Health

• Member Royal College of Physicians

• Fellow Royal College of Physicians

• Member British Paediatric Respiratroy Society

• Member British Thoracic Society

• Member American Thoracic Society

• Member European Respiratory Society

• Fellow Royal Society of Medicine

• Member British Medical Association

• Fellow of the Faculty of History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy, Worshipful Society of Apothecaries

• Member of the MCC

Published material

Dr Balfour-Lynn is associate editor responsible for respiratory papers at Archives of Disease in Childhood (ADC), the journal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He is on the editorial board for Pediatric Pulmonology, a specialist journal published in the USA and an associate editor of the quarterly journal, Paediatric Respiratory Reviews.

Dr Balfour-Lynn has written numerous papers, book chapters, national guidelines and reviews on his specialist subjects.

Details of his experience, lectures, conferences and publications are available on Dr Ian Balfour-Lynn's website.