Chest
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Observational Study
Non-Malignant Pleural Effusions (NMPE): a prospective study of 356 consecutive unselected patients.
Pleural effusion secondary to a nonmalignant cause can represent significant morbidity and mortality. Nonmalignant pleural effusion (NMPE) is common, with congestive heart failure representing the leading cause. Despite this, there are limited data on mortality risk and associated prognostic factors. ⋯ This is the largest prospectively collected series in patients with NMPE, demonstrating that cases secondary to organ dysfunction have extremely high 1-year mortality. In addition, the presence of bilateral and transudative effusions is an indicator of increased mortality. Clinicians should be aware of these poor prognostic features and guide management accordingly.
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Interventional pulmonology (IP) is a rapidly evolving subspecialty of pulmonary medicine. In the last 10 years, formal IP fellowships have increased substantially in number from five to now > 30. ⋯ Recognizing the need for more uniform training across the various fellowship programs, a multisociety accreditation committee was formed with the intent to establish common accreditation standards for all IP fellowship programs in the United States. This article provides a summary of those standards and can serve as an accreditation template for training programs and their offices of graduate medical education as they move through the accreditation process.
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Case Reports
A Woman in Her 30s With a History of Cervical Cancer Presents With Shortness of Breath and Pleuritic Chest Pain.
A woman in her 30s presented to the ED with a 3-month history of shortness of breath on exertion, dry cough, and pleuritic chest pain. A month ago, the patient was seen at an internal medicine clinic and was found to have a right pleural effusion. A thoracentesis revealed straw-colored fluid, a total nucleated cell count of 1,260 × 106/L, and a differential with neutrophils of 0.15, lymphocytes of 0.55, macrophages/monocytes of 0.19, and eosinophils of 0.10. ⋯ A CT scan of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis was negative for distant metastases. The patient completed treatment with external beam radiation therapy and cisplatin chemotherapy 6 months ago. Three weeks prior to presentation to the ED, a repeat MRI pelvis showed no evidence of tumor progression and features consistent with posttreatment fibrotic changes.
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As seen in this CME online activity (available at http://courses.elseviercme.com/chest16/647e), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a specific form of chronic progressive fibrotic lung disease of unknown cause. It is the most common form of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia in adults. Its prevalence among US Medicare beneficiaries has more than doubled in the past 14 years. ⋯ Standard immunosuppressive therapy is no longer indicated, whereas pirfenidone, nintedanib, and antacid therapy are all conditionally recommended for use. Individualizing treatment is important in light of potential improved adherence to both drug therapy and health behaviors. An early referral to an interstitial lung disease center offers the advantages of comprehensive diagnostic and disease-management expertise, potential enrollment in a clinical trial, and evaluation for transplantation.
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Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are a rare, heterogeneous group of malignancies that arise from neuroendocrine cells throughout the body, with the lungs and GI tract being the most common sites of origin. Despite increasing incidence, awareness of lung NETs remains low among thoracic specialists who are often involved in the assessment and early treatment of these patients. Successful treatment requires accurate and timely diagnosis; however, classification can be challenging, particularly for well-differentiated and intermediate-differentiated lung NET types (typical carcinoids [TC] and atypical carcinoids [AC]). ⋯ Recent data from the Phase III RAD001 in Advanced Neuroendocrine Tumors, Fourth Trial (RADIANT-4), which contained a large population of patients with advanced, well-differentiated, nonfunctional lung NETs in addition to those with GI NETs, found a reduced risk of disease progression and death with everolimus compared with placebo, leading to US approval of everolimus in these patient populations. This study is the first high-level therapeutic evidence in patients with TC/AC, and everolimus is currently the only agent approved for treatment of TC/AC. Increased awareness, prompt diagnosis, and additional adequately powered controlled clinical trials of patients with well-differentiated and intermediate-differentiated lung NETs are needed to further improve evidence-based care.