Current Respiratory Medicine Reviews - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2009

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Frequency and type of respiratory manifestations differ among individual rheumatic diseases in childhood as well as among children and adults. It is important to recognise respiratory complications of established diseases like juvenile systemic lupus erythematosus or dermatomyositis early enough to prevent serious disease outcomes. Nevertheless, it is of the same importance to reveal unusual characteristics of respiratory Read More

The pathobiology of CF lung disease has yet to be fully elucidated and several theories have been proposed in recent years relating the basic biochemical defect caused by CFTR dysfunction to the CF phenotype. Within the last decade accumulating evidence has suggested that the pulmonary inflammation observed in CF patients may be intrinsically related to the CFTR mutation, resulting in an augmented inflammat Read More

The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and acute lung injury (ALI) are part of a devastating syndrome characterized by acute onset, hypoxemia, and bilateral infiltrates on chest X-rays. ALI/ARDS arises from the lung's response to local or systemic aggression in which local inflammation and coagulation disorders lead to increased inflammatory pulmonary edema. ARDS is a major cause of morbidity, death, Read More

Surfactant dysfunction has been demonstrated in clinical and experimental studies of acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Inflammatory mediators, alveolar exudation, capillary endotheliopathy, and various other mechanisms have been indicted as the cause of surfactant dysfunction. In addition, loss of biophysical activity and damage to the type II alveolar cells leads to altered surfacta Read More

The use of helium in medicine was first described by Barach who treated obstructive lesions of the airways, in 1936. Since then, only scattered reports can be found in the medical literature until the 80's, when interest in helium resurged for the treatment of acute asthma, as deaths from this disease begun to rise. At least theoretically, because of its physical properties, helium should be useful in several obstructive conditi Read More

There has been little impact on the incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) despite advances in perinatal care. BPD is a syndrome of persistent respiratory insufficiency in which preterm infants continue to require supplemental oxygen and/or mechanical ventilatory support with long term implications. Although the severe “classical” form of BPD is infrequently seen, a “new” BPD though often milder continues to c Read More

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the causative agent of tuberculosis), is a stealthy pathogen with a great ability to successfully infect humans and a strong will to stay in the host as long as possible. As much as one admires it as a microbiological entity, M. tuberculosis is also a killer at large responsible for an annual death toll of more than two million people worldwide. Treatment of tuberculosis is a lengthy process that requi Read More