Our lungs work tirelessly all through the day to keep us breathing, seamlessly expanding and contracting. When lung tissue becomes damaged and scarred, it can lose its flexibility, making it harder to breathe. Lung scarring can lead to diseases like pulmonary fibrosis, and potentially life-threatening complications. Lung fibrosis can also develop in patients with a…
Difficulty breathing is becoming easier for patients at Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC). Orlando Health ORMC is the first hospital in Central Florida to offer a new lung valve treatment for patients with severe emphysema, a progressive and life-threatening form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Zephyr Endobronchial Valve System, by Pulmonx Corp.…
The use of point-of-care testing for C-reactive protein to guide treatment lessened the use of antibiotics for COPD exacerbations without worsening clinical outcomes, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Recommendations for antibiotic prescribing in primary care practice are generally based on clinical features alone; but these features are subjective and insufficiently…
Child asthma; A chaotic household one where things just don’t seem to run smoothly, there’s lots of noise, little gets taken care of in a timely manner, and where relaxation is difficult as well as child and parent depression, are risk factors for worse asthma outcomes in urban minority children, according to a new paper…
Respiratory Illness; CT scans of the lungs of smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease when analyzed by a mathematical function called airway fractal dimension can estimate increased risk of death for a group of people who are not otherwise identified as high-risk by conventional tests. That is a major finding of clinical importance in a…
Pollen counts have soared to “very high” across much of the UK, triggering a warning for millions of hay fever and asthma sufferers. A “pollen bomb” has hit following last week’s mini-heatwave and counts will remain at dangerously high levels as temperatures rise to 25C on Thursday and 27C on Friday. More than three million asthma…
Pneumonia Patients; A million times a year, pneumonia sends American adults to the hospital. And while antibiotics help save lives, a new study shows two-thirds receive more antibiotics than they probably need. It’s not the care that happens in the hospital that leads to over-treatment, the study finds. Rather, it’s the prescriptions that patients receive…
Airway Size And Lung Volume; A parent’s lung, heart and bone health all have an impact on their child by the age of 11 or 12, according to a snapshot of pre-teen health. Led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, the Child Health CheckPoint was a one-off physical assessment of 1800 children and their parents across…
Asthma Attacks; In this study; child asthma cases can triple at the start of the school year as returning to the classroom exposes pupils to coughs and colds, reports the Mail Online. Doctors have suspected for years that children are more likely to need medical help for asthma in the weeks after returning to school…
Environmental Intervention; The World Health Organization estimates that at least 300 million people suffer from asthma worldwide. Older adults ages 65 and over with asthma are the fastest growing age-group in the U.S. Studies in the United States show that asthma and other reactive airway diseases are under-diagnose among the elderly, that asthma relate morbidity…
COPD; A new study provides evidence to support a simple measurement for diagnosing clinically significant airflow obstruction, the key characteristic of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. The study found that a 70% ratio of two indicators of lung function proved as or more accurate than…
Asthma Patients; Carefully designed, integrated multi-“omic” studies could accelerate the use of precision medicine for asthma patients, according to researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In an invited review article published today in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Scott R. Tyler, Ph.D., and Supinda Bunyavanich, MD, MPH report that numerous…