Current Respiratory Medicine Reviews - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2009

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Pulmonary fibrosis is involved in several respiratory diseases such as idiopathic interstitial pneumonias, druginduced pulmonary disease, occupational or environmental pulmonary disease and collagen vascular disease, and leads to systemic fatal damage in some cases. Several cytokines, inflammatory mediators, and growth factors play a complicated role in the progression of fibrosis, resulting in difficulty in spe Read More

The integration of knowledge concerning the regulation of metallothionein (MT) with research on its proposed functions is necessary to clarify how MT affects cellular processes. MT expression is induced/enhanced in various tissues by a number of physiological mediators through several response elements in the MT gene promoter. The cellular accumulation of MT depends on the availability of cellular zinc derived from th Read More

Low dose methotrexate (MTX) is used frequently in a wide variety of conditions. This includes rheumatological conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and non-rheumatological conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease. One of the most serious although infrequent side effects of low dose MTX is MTX induced pneumonitis (MTX-P). The latest literature on epidemiology, risk factors, pathophysiology and clinical featu Read More

Statins being the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors are potent inhibitors of the key enzyme on cholesterol biosynthesis. However, considerable experimental and clinical evidence have shown that statins have pleiotropic effects on respiratory and cardiovascular systems that are beyond their cholesterol-lowering properties. Statins inhibit an early step in the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway. They Read More

Alcohol abuse is a systemic disorder and increases the risk of lung injury. After ingestion, alcohol freely diffuses from the bronchial circulation directly through the ciliated epithelium where it vaporizes as it moves into the conducting airways. Some of vaporized alcohol can deposit back into the airway lining fluid and results in repeated exposure of the airway epithelium to high local concentrations of alcohol. Chronic alcohol i Read More

Conventional treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) includes oxygen supplementation, calcium channel blockers, anticoagulation, digoxin, and diuretics. Calcium channel blockers have little or no effect on the majority of patients with moderate or severe PAH. Apart from the intravenous prostacyclin which remains the gold standard treatment for this life-threatening entity, newer drugs such as prostacyclin an Read More

Pulmonary hemorrhage (PH) is a life-threatening complication in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) occurring in 0.5% to 5.7% of lupus patients. PH is more common in women. The mean age at onset is around 30 years. Most have an established diagnosis of SLE but in approximately 20% PH occurs at onset of diagnosis. PH should be suspected in lupus patients presenting new pulmonary infiltrates, a rapid decline in hemoglobi Read More

Antibodies mediate humoral immune responses and play key roles in the defense of viral infection by the recognition, neutralization, and elimination of viruses from the circulation. For the prevention of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, the pooled human plasma has been harvested and successfully developed as a prophylactic polyclonal RSV hyperimmune globulin, RespiGam (RSV-IGIV; MedImmune, Gaith Read More

Diaphragmatic pacing, also known as electrophrenic respiration or phrenic pacing has been used for quite some time in patients with respiratory failure due to diaphragmatic paralysis. We present a case of patient with respiratory insufficiency due to unilateral phrenic nerve injury as a result of radiation therapy for breast cancer. The patient had a diaphragmatic pacer inserted, with significant recovery on her symptoms. Thre Read More

Staphylococcus aureus is a common human pathogen, and over the past 90 years has been increasingly recognized as an important cause of pneumonia. The epidemiology of staphylococcal pneumonia has changed over this time period, and S. aureus is now a frequent cause of both community-acquired and hospital-acquired pneumonia including ventilator- associated pneumonia. This article reviews the important ch Read More