Respiration; international review of thoracic diseases
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A significant part of the budget of our bronchoscopy unit represents repair costs for damaged bronchoscopes. ⋯ Only a small number of occurrences of bronchoscope damage in our unit are potentially preventable, but they still represent an important expense. The relatively low occurrence of preventable damage is a result of the successful bronchoscopy training program.
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Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a common diagnosis in intensive care units (ICUs) and is frequently correlated with acute kidney injury (AKI). ⋯ In patients with ARDS undergoing OLB, the use of the RIFLE score improves prediction of outcome.
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Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is able to detect variations in regional lung electrical impedance associated with changes in both air and blood content and potentially capable of assessing regional ventilation-perfusion relationships. However, regional lung perfusion is difficult to determine because the impedance changes synchronous with the heart rate are of very small amplitude. ⋯ Our results indicate that redistribution of regional lung perfusion can be assessed by EIT during one-lung ventilation. The performance of EIT in detecting changes in lung perfusion in even smaller lung regions remains to be established.
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Smokers have higher incidences of pulmonary diseases. This increased susceptibility may result from cigarette smoke (CS)-induced impairment of the pulmonary immune system. However, the mechanism(s) is not fully understood. ⋯ These results suggest that the inhibition by CS-exposed AM of LPS-induced B lymphocyte proliferation may be caused by the increased superoxide and hydrogen peroxide generation of CS. Therefore, these immunological inhibitions by CS could be associated with increased risk of pulmonary diseases.