Feature Channels: Respiratory Diseases and Disorders

• share
• favorite_border

African Americans may be less responsive to asthma treatment and more likely to die from the condition, in part, because they have a unique type of airway inflammation, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. The study is one of the largest and most diverse trials conducted in the U.S. on race and asthma, with 26 percent of the patients self-identifying as African American. Researchers found that black patients were more likely to exhibit eosinophilic airway inflammation than whites, despite taking comparable doses of asthma medication, such as inhaled corticosteroids.

• share
• favorite_border

A new Yale study suggests that patients with a common form of lung cancer may still benefit from delayed chemotherapy started up to four months after surgery, according to the researchers.

• share
• favorite_border

Results of an initial study of tumors from patients with lung cancer or head and neck cancer suggest that the widespread acquired resistance to immunotherapy drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors may be due to the elimination of certain genetic mutations needed to enable the immune system to recognize and attack malignant cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at McMaster University and St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton have demonstrated that physiotherapists can safely start in-bed cycling sessions with critically ill, mechanically ventilated patients early on in their ICU stay.

• share
• favorite_border

Emergency rooms in communities with indoor smoking bans reported a 17 percent decrease in the number of children needing care for asthma attacks, according to new research from the University of Chicago Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

The researchers said this study might help shed light on sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in human babies, which is thought to be associated with dysfunctional airway sensory neurons.

• share
• favorite_border

Using an array of nanoscale sensors, researchers have identified distinct “chemical signatures” in breath samples, for several diseases (including lung cancer, ovarian cancer, Crohn's disease, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis).

• share
• favorite_border

For critically ill patients with heart or lung failure that does not respond to conventional treatments, extracorporeal life support (ECLS) can provide a bridge to survival. Updated analysis of a worldwide database finds that ECLS technologies are becoming more widely available and more frequently used at centers around the world, according to a report in the ASAIO Journal, published by Wolters Kluwer.

• share
• favorite_border

The Penn Center for Precision Medicine (PCPM) Accelerator Fund awarded eight research teams from Penn Medicine in their inaugural support of the implementation of personalized medicine projects across a gamut of clinical specialties. The projects cover a range of clinical applications, from lung cancer to infectious disease to knee surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

Nationally, the highest rates of asthma-related deaths and hospitalizations are among low-income minority adults, but most existing research doesn’t focus on these patients. In particular, studies may not investigate patients where they live, in complicated, difficult circumstances. Many adult asthma patients have multiple diseases and exposure to tobacco smoke, but much research reflects the convenience of recruiting patients in clinics and on the relative simplicity of studying patients who do not have accompanying diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.

• share
• favorite_border

Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a computer simulation that helps predict under which circumstances a new short-course treatment regimen for drug-resistant tuberculosis could substantially reduce the global incidence and spread of the disease.

• share
• favorite_border

The Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center will be the first proton center in the U.S. to use P-Cure’s innovative upright imaging technology for patients being treated for lung cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Patients with advanced malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) treated with a combination of surgery to remove the cancer but save their lung, plus photodynamic therapy and chemotherapy, had a median survival of nearly three years, with a subset of patients living longer than seven years, according to new research published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

The chronic lung inflammation that is a hallmark of cystic fibrosis, has, for the first time, been linked to a new class of bacterial enzymes that hijack the patient’s immune response and prevent the body from calling off runaway inflammation, according to a laboratory investigation led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

Research lays groundwork for large VA study on respiratory health in Iraq, Afghanistan Vets

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers cracked the complete genetic code of individual cells in healthy and diseased human lung tissues to find potential new molecular targets for diagnosing and treating the lethal lung disease Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Scientists from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, in collaboration with investigators at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, publish their findings Dec. 8 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insights (JCI Insight).

• share
• favorite_border

An inactive lifestyle may increase the risk of environmentally induced asthma symptoms. In a new study, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency researchers found that sedentary rats exposed to varying degrees of ozone, a type of air pollution, had higher markers for chronic disease when compared to counterparts that were more active.

• share
• favorite_border

US military veterans have high rates of potentially harmful respiratory exposures—which are linked to an increased likelihood of respiratory diseases, reports a study in the December Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

• share
• favorite_border

A new drug has been approved by the FDA in the fight against lung cancer. Tecentriq is being used by patients like Cornelius Bresnan, who had late-stage cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Working with human immune cells in the laboratory, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have identified a critical cellular "off" switch for the inflammatory immune response that contributes to lung-constricting asthma attacks. The switch, they say, is composed of regulatory proteins that control an immune signaling pathway in cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Menopausal women appear to experience an accelerated decline in lung function, according to new research published online ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

The recent catastrophic NJ Transit train accident in Hoboken highlights one of the perils of undiagnosed sleep apnea – the threat to transportation safety. As in several other recent calamitous accidents, the engineer fell asleep at the wheel due to a medical condition that causes sleepiness, and the presence of which he was not aware. When an individual operates a vehicle of public transportation, whether it be a train, a bus or a plane, many lives are in their hands. Anytime the operator of one of these modes of transportation becomes drowsy, or worse, falls asleep at the controls, many lives are immediately placed in jeopardy. This is why these safety-critical personnel should be screened and monitored for their fitness for their work, including identifying the presence of sleep disorders. In fact, the Federal Railroad Administration is expected to issue a safety advisory this week stressing the importance of sleep apnea screening and treatment.

• share
• favorite_border

Cedars-Sinai investigators have pinpointed a major cause of pulmonary fibrosis, a mysterious and deadly disease that scars the lungs and obstructs breathing. The disease, which has no known cure, appears to result from the failure of special lung stem cells that help airways recover from injury, the investigators reported in the journal Nature Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

A cellular component known as the Golgi apparatus may play a role in how lung cancer metastasizes, according to researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center whose findings were reported in the Nov. 21 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

• share
• favorite_border

Lung-MAP (SWOG S1400) is a multi-drug, multi-sub-study, biomarker-driven squamous cell lung cancer clinical trial that uses state-of-the-art genomic profiling to match patients to sub-studies testing investigational treatments that may target the genomic alterations, or mutations, found to be driving the growth of their cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Professor Roy S. Herbst, M.D., Ph.D., Yale University, New Haven, will be recognized by The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer with a Distinguished Award at the IASLC 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Vienna, Austria.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Immunotherapy continues to revolutionize the field of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with researchers now focusing on the optimal use of immune agents in the frontline setting.

• share
• favorite_border

A new method which doubles the usual time donor lungs can remain outside the body can benefit patients, staff and allow retrieval of donor lungs across greater geographical areas.

• share
• favorite_border

E-cigarette use among teenagers is growing dramatically, and public health experts are concerned that these devices may be a gateway to smoking. Now, new research indicates that even if these young e-cigarette users do not become tobacco smokers, e-cigarettes may harm their health.

• share
• favorite_border

The key to surviving lung cancer is to detect it early, when it is most treatable. Since Loyola Medicine began offering CT lung cancer screening to people at high risk, nearly 1,000 smokers have been screened and early-stage lung cancer was found in 15 smokers before they experienced symptoms.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers are a step closer to understanding why cigarette smoke exposure during pregnancy may increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). SIDS is the unexplained, sudden death of a child younger than one year of age. A new study finds that prenatal cigarette smoke exposure in rats affected breathing responses and immune function of their offspring. Breathing and immune function are further negatively affected by high room temperatures.

• share
• favorite_border

Tuberculosis (TB) is responsible for more than 1.8 million deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization, yet there has been little significant improvement in therapies in the past 20 years. This chronic disease is systemic, meaning it affects not only the lungs but also other organs, such as the lymph nodes and spleen. But a promising new treatment may be on the horizon.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have developed a tissue-engineered model of lung and trachea which contains the diverse cell types present in the human respiratory tract. The study was published this week in the online version of the journal Tissue Engineering.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame are focused on better understanding lung cancer at a cellular level and investigating drugs that could inhibit lung cancer growth and prevent it from spreading.

• share
• favorite_border

A study being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting found only 18 percent of non-nursing school staff surveyed felt very confident in their ability to recognize anaphylaxis symptoms. Only 19 percent felt very confident that they could correctly treat a child having a severe allergic reaction.

• share
• favorite_border

Curiosity is a driving factor in why most kids start smoking, and the same is true for kids with asthma. A study presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting found adolescents with asthma were twice as likely to smoke as kids without asthma. And they continue to smoke well into their teen years, even though they know smoking is particularly bad for their lungs.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists can now grow 3-D models of lungs from stem cells, creating new ways to study respiratory diseases.

• share
• favorite_border

“Pneumonia is the top infection-linked killer of children globally,” says Roomi Nusrat, MD, a member of the American Thoracic Society’s Pneumonia Working Group and Allergy, Immunology and Inflammation Assembly. “It is responsible for more than 50,000 deaths each year in the U.S.”

• share
• favorite_border

Although the understanding of cough triggered by occupational and environmental causes has improved, experts say there is still a gap between current guidelines and clinical practice. A report by the CHEST Expert Cough Panel published in the journal CHEST suggests an approach to investigating occupational and environmental causes when these are suspected. The report has been endorsed by professional associations in the U.S., Canada, and Asia.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new personalized assessment tool that could better predict lung cancer risk in never, light and heavy smokers using a large Taiwanese prospective cohort study.

• share
• favorite_border

New study finds that beta-cryptoxanthin, a carotenoid primarily found in plants, reduces lung cancer development and invasiveness in mouse and cell models. The results support human epidemiological studies associating high beta-cryptoxanthin intake with lower risk of lung cancer in current smokers.

• share
• favorite_border

The FDA granted approval to pembrolizumab for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors express programmed death ligand-1 as determined by an FDA–approved test.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

With five simple questions and an inexpensive peak expiratory flow (PEF) meter, primary care clinicians may be able to diagnose many more patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, according to new research published online in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Follow-up studies will help establish if earlier identification and treatment of people with COPD improves quality of life and health outcomes.

• share
• favorite_border

A recent Cochrane Review has found evidence from randomised trials, that taking an oral vitamin D supplement in addition to standard asthma medication is likely to reduce severe asthma attacks.

• share
• favorite_border

A newly published study of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) concludes that long-term supplemental oxygen treatment results in little or no change in time to death, time to first hospitalizations or significant quality of life improvements for those with moderately low blood oxygen levels.

• share
• favorite_border

Spurred by NYS Trade Mission to Cuba in 2015, Buffalo cancer center will conduct a clinical trial with CIMAvax-EGF, groundbreaking immunotherapy for lung cancer developed in Cuba — becoming the first American center to receive FDA authorization to sponsor a clinical trial offering a Cuban-made therapy to U.S. patients — and will work to speed this and other innovative therapies to patients worldwide through a historic new business venture with Cuban research institute

• share
• favorite_border

A team of Wayne State University researchers led by Karen MacDonell, Ph.D., assistant professor of family medicine and public health sciences at Wayne State’s School of Medicine, recently received a $2.66 million award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to address research limitations on interventions and ultimately improve asthma management in racial minority populations, particularly minority adolescents and young adults.

• share
• favorite_border

Pembrolizumab, an immunotherapy drug that was extensively evaluated by UCLA cancer researcher Dr. Edward Garon, has been approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration as first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The first-line designation means that some patients will have access to the drug without first having to receive other treatments such as chemotherapy.