American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2012
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative StudyLong-term inhaled dry powder mannitol in cystic fibrosis: an international randomized study.
New treatment strategies are needed to improve airway clearance and reduce the morbidity and the time burden associated with cystic fibrosis (CF). ⋯ Inhaled mannitol, 400 mg twice a day, resulted in improved lung function over 26 weeks, which was sustained after an additional 26 weeks of treatment. The safety profile was also acceptable, demonstrating the potential role for this chronic therapy for CF. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT 00630812).
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2012
Multicenter Study Comparative Study Clinical TrialA large subgroup of mild-to-moderate asthma is persistently noneosinophilic.
Airway eosinophilia is typical of asthma, and many controller treatments target eosinophilic disease. Asthma is clinically heterogeneous, however, and a subgroup of people with asthma do not have airway eosinophilia. The size of this subgroup is uncertain because prior studies have not examined repeated measures of sputum cytology to determine when people with asthma have intermittent versus persistent sputum eosinophila and when they are persistently noneosinophilic. ⋯ Approximately half of patients with mild-to-moderate asthma have persistently noneosinophilic disease, a disease phenotype that responds poorly to currently available antiinflammatory therapy.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2012
Comparative StudyA comparison between two strategies for monitoring hepatic function during antituberculous therapy.
The optimum strategy for monitoring liver function during antituberculous therapy is unclear. ⋯ In our urban, ethnically diverse population, a risk-factor approach is neither sensitive nor specific for prediction of drug-induced liver injury. A uniform policy of liver function testing at 2 weeks is useful for prompt identification of a subgroup who develop early drug-induced liver injury and may offer better specificity in ruling out late drug-induced liver injury.
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Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. · Mar 2012
Comparative StudyThe clinical and environmental determinants of airway transcriptional profiles in allergic asthma.
Gene expression profiling of airway epithelial and inflammatory cells can be used to identify genes involved in environmental asthma. ⋯ Our results indicate that among individuals with allergic asthma, transcriptional changes in airway epithelia and inflammatory cells are influenced by phenotype as well as environmental exposures.