BMC pulmonary medicine
-
BMC pulmonary medicine · May 2009
The Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) birth cohort study: design, methods, and study population.
The incidence and morbidity of wheezing illnesses and childhood asthma is especially high in poor urban areas. This paper describes the study design, methods, and population of the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA) study, which was established to investigate the immunologic causes of asthma among inner-city children. ⋯ The overall goal of the URECA study is to develop a better understanding of how specific urban exposures affect immune development to promote wheezing illnesses and asthma.
-
BMC pulmonary medicine · Jan 2009
Comparative StudyClinical predictors for Legionella in patients presenting with community-acquired pneumonia to the emergency department.
Legionella species cause severe forms of pneumonia with high mortality and complication rates. Accurate clinical predictors to assess the likelihood of Legionella community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in patients presenting to the emergency department are lacking. ⋯ Six clinical and laboratory parameters embedded in a simple diagnostic score accurately identified patients with Legionella CAP. If validated in future studies, this score might aid in the management of suspected Legionella CAP.
-
BMC pulmonary medicine · Jan 2009
Plasma CC16 levels are associated with development of ALI/ARDS in patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia: a retrospective observational study.
Despite consensus criteria, diagnosing acute lung injury, or its more severe form acute respiratory distress syndrome (ALI/ARDS) remains challenging. Adding objective measures, such as plasma levels of biological markers could facilitate recognition of ALI/ARDS. This study was designed to assess and compare the diagnostic accuracy of biological markers for ALI/ARDS with ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). ⋯ Plasma CC16 seems a potential biological marker for ALI/ARDS in patients with VAP. Plasma levels of sRAGE, SP-D and KL-6 have limited discriminative power for diagnosing ALI/ARDS in VAP.
-
BMC pulmonary medicine · Jan 2009
ICE COLD ERIC--International collaborative effort on chronic obstructive lung disease: exacerbation risk index cohorts--study protocol for an international COPD cohort study.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a systemic disease; morbidity and mortality due to COPD are on the increase, and it has great impact on patients' lives. Most COPD patients are managed by general practitioners (GP). Too often, GPs base their initial assessment of patient's disease severity mainly on lung function. However, lung function correlates poorly with COPD-specific health-related quality of life and exacerbation frequency. A validated COPD disease risk index that better represents the clinical manifestations of COPD and is feasible in primary care seems to be useful. The objective of this study is to develop and validate a practical COPD disease risk index that predicts the clinical course of COPD in primary care patients with GOLD stages 2-4. ⋯ Despite the diversity of clinical manifestations and available treatments, assessment and management today do not reflect the multifaceted character of the disease. This is in contrast to preventive cardiology where, nowadays, the treatment in primary care is based on patient-specific and fairly refined cardiovascular risk profile corresponding to differences in prognosis. After completion of this study, we will have a practical COPD-disease risk index that predicts the clinical course of COPD in primary care patients with GOLD stages 2-4. In a second step we will incorporate evidence-based treatment effects into this model, such that the instrument may guide physicians in selecting treatment based on the individual patients' prognosis.
-
BMC pulmonary medicine · Jan 2009
Comparative StudyComparison of airway measurements during influenza-induced tachypnea in infant and adult cotton rats.
Increased respiratory rate (tachypnea) is frequently observed as a clinical sign of influenza pneumonia in pediatric patients admitted to the hospital. We previously demonstrated that influenza infection of adult cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) also results in tachypnea and wanted to establish whether this clinical sign was observed in infected infant cotton rats. We hypothesized that age-dependent differences in lung mechanics result in differences in ventilatory characteristics following influenza infection. ⋯ While respiratory rate is increased in both adult and infant influenza-infected cotton rats, the volume of air exchanged per minute (minute volume) is increased in the infant animals only. This is likely to be a consequence of greater lung elastance in the very young animals. This model replicates many respiratory features of humans and consequently may be a useful tool to investigate new strategies to treat respiratory disease in influenza-infected infants.