Chest
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Definitions for central lung cancer (CLC) have been ambiguous in guidelines, causing difficulty in selecting candidates for invasive mediastinal staging among patients with radiologically node-negative, early-stage lung cancer. ⋯ Three definitions exhibited robust associations with occult nodal metastasis. However, selecting candidates for invasive mediastinal staging solely based on a central tumor location would be suboptimal.
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Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) is the main procedure for mediastinal staging. However, long-term survival analyses according to clinical nodal stage diagnosed by EBUS-TBNA (eN stage) have not been reported. The value of EBUS-TBNA has not been assessed through an analysis of survival in false-negative EBUS-TBNA cases. ⋯ Long-term survival significantly differed according to eN stage in NSCLC, highlighting the importance of EBUS-TBNA in NSCLC staging. False-negative EBUS-TBNA cases had favorable survival which was similar to that of patients with pN1, which may provide a rationale for performing surgery after negative EBUS-TBNA results.
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Physical frailty commonly is associated with COPD, and its evaluation in COPD may provide important prognostic information for risk stratification. ⋯ The study supports the use of physical frailty in addition to lung function and dyspnea in multidimensional evaluation of COPD.
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An 11-month-old boy was admitted to our hospital because of "recurrent cough with intermittent dyspnea for more than 8 months, aggravated for 1 month." The baby began experiencing a recurrent milk-choking problem within 1.5 months after birth. He had been hospitalized four times, but the symptoms recurred. ⋯ Pediatric bronchoscopy revealed bronchial inflammatory features, with hemosiderin-laden macrophages being found in BAL fluid (BALF). Also, periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) staining showed positive results, which indicated the possibility of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) or idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis (IPH).
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A 68-year-old woman presented to a subspecialty complex-airways-disease clinic with chronic cough. She had a 10-pack-year history of smoking, quit over 35 years ago, and had mild atopy (dust mite) and mild rhinitis. She did not have any relevant occupational exposure or comorbidities. ⋯ It had been present for years, though it changed in nature over time. She also reported one to two episodes of streaky hemoptysis. She had not noticed significant benefit with nasal or inhaled corticosteroids, but short bursts of prednisone had temporarily modestly improved her cough.