Pneumologie
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This is a report on 2 adult patients suffering from pulmonary histiocytosis X. The aetiology and the diagnostic and therapeutic approach are discussed on the basis of a review of the literature. This is a rare disease that is triggered by a virus and immunologically conditioned, the disposition being genetically transferred. ⋯ Indication for treating the patients, who usually do not display prominent signs and symptoms, should be discrete because spontaneous remissions occur very frequently. If the patients display relevant signs and symptoms, corticosteroid long-term treatment over 12 months with 0.5-1.0 mg/kg body weight per day is recommended employing a slowly and progressively reduced dosage schedule. Chemotherapeutic drugs or thymus extracts are administered in a few rare instances.
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In 21 patients suffering from severe sleep-apnoea syndrome we measured continuously haemodynamic parameters, blood gases, ECG, EEG, respiratory rate and ultrasonic cardiogram before and under treatment with nasal CPAP-breathing. All patients (male, age 29 to 58 yrs) had normal blood gases, heart-minute-volumes pulmonary artery pressures and left ventricular end-diastolic wedge pressures, when they were awake. During sleep all developed a decrease of pO2 and severe pulmonary artery hypertension with mean pulmonary artery pressures of 64 mmHg. ⋯ The pulmonary artery pressures normalised in all patients. No right ventricular enlargement could be seen during nasal CPAP-breathing. Treatment with CPAP-breathing could normalise haemodynamic disorders in patients with severe SAS and may perhaps prevent development of cor pulmonale.
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Comparative Study
[The relationship of histological type and tumor location to prognosis in 1000 patients with lung resection with special reference to adenocarcinoma].
On the basis of clinical investigations of 1,000 resected lung cancer patients we comment on the prognostic implications of histological type and tumour localisation with special regard to adenocarcinoma. 1. 198 patients, resected for primary adenocarcinoma of the lung, had 5- and 10-year survival rates of 42% and 25.3% respectively, similar to the survival rate of patients who had been operated on for squamous cell carcinoma. 2. Of 6 patients suffering from central adenocarcinoma according to WHO classification of 1967, or 10 patients according to WHO classification of 1981, not a single patient survived for more than 3 years. In patients with peripheral adenocarcinoma the survival rates after 5 and 10 years amounted to 42.4% and 26.6%. ⋯ It was impossible to demonstrate a correlation between survival rate and grade of differentiation in adenocarcinoma patients. There were also no prognostic differences between papillary and acinar subtype. Patients with bronchiolo-alveolar carcinoma had the significantly highest survival rates.
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Stenosis and malacia of the trachea wall can provoke chronic stridor and/or chronic bronchitis, but usually stenosis and malacia only exist separately. The finding of an infant born with atresia of the oesophagus and a lower tracheoesophageal fistula which was cured by surgery on the 1st day of life are discussed. During the following 8 months we observed persistent stridor, chronic cough and (4-times) relapsing episodes of respiratory insufficiency ("nearly-sudden-infant-death-syndrome"/NSIDS) due to gastrooesophageal reflux (GER with aspiration) and severe tracheomalacia combined with tracheostenosis and bacterial infections (Pseudomonas aeruginosa). The strategy of therapy for GER and for the tracheal abnormality are discussed.
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We report on a 6-year-old boy with an area of opacity in the right lung that persisted after a feverish respiratory tract infection. Aortography confirmed the suspected diagnosis of pulmonary sequestration. ⋯ The venous drainage occurred via the right upper lobe vein, and, most unusually, also to the right pulmonary artery. The clinical findings, diagnostic possibilities and differential diagnostic considerations are discussed.