Respiration; international review of thoracic diseases
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Clinical Trial
Transesophageal bronchoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration for diagnosis of sarcoidosis.
Several studies have reported that specimens from mediastinal lesions located adjacent to the esophagus can be sampled using an ultrasound bronchoscope instead of an ultrasound endoscope. ⋯ Transesophageal bronchoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration is feasible, safe and accurate for the diagnosis of stage I/II sarcoidosis.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Agreement between spirometers: a challenge in the follow-up of patients and populations?
Long-term cohort studies and lung function laboratories are confronted with the need for replacement of spirometers. Lack of agreement between spirometers might affect the longitudinal comparison of data, notably when replacing conventional by portable spirometers. ⋯ This study suggests fair agreement between the handheld and the conventional spirometer. Differences slightly exceeding limits for FEV1 in 2 EO devices might be considered mostly irrelevant for clinical practice. However, the systematically lower FVC and FEV1 observed with EO may be significant for epidemiological studies, thus justifying inspection before replacing devices.
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Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most common type of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia and has a dismal prognosis. Median age at IPF onset is 60-70 years and it is mainly related to cigarette smoke exposure. Its clinical profile is heterogeneous and different clinical phenotypes are now better defined: familial IPF, slow and rapid progressors, combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema, anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies/microscopic polyangiitis and IPF, and IPF associated with lung cancer. ⋯ However, less invasive procedures (transbronchial lung biopsy or even improved transbronchial lung biopsy by cryoprobes) are now under consideration. Prognostic indicators are mainly derived by pulmonary function tests. Recently, staging systems have been proposed.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Prediction of requirement for mechanical ventilation in community-acquired pneumonia with acute respiratory failure: a multicenter prospective study.
Several severity scoring systems for predicting mortality are established in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). ⋯ The results of this study suggest that the A-DROP scoring system could be a simple CAP risk scoring system which could predict not only mortality, but also the requirement for mechanical ventilation.
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Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a pulmonary syndrome with growing prevalence and high mortality and morbidity that increase with age. There is no current therapy able to restore pulmonary function in ARDS patients. ⋯ Recent studies have demonstrated that MSCs can also control oxidative stress, transfer functional mitochondria to the damaged cells, and control bacterial infection by secretion of antibacterial peptides. These characteristics make MSCs promising candidates for ARDS therapy.