Feature Channels: Respiratory Diseases and Disorders

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El asma es una afección en la que las vías respiratorias se estrechan e hinchan y puede haber tanto más mucosidad como otros síntomas. Aunque el asma también afecta a los adultos, es la enfermedad más frecuente en los niños. En el mundo, más de 262 millones de personas sufren de asma y más de 461 000 han muerto debido a esta afección, según informa la Organización Mundial de la Salud.

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In AIP Advances, researchers show models driving how respiratory droplets fell from a mannequin inside a water tunnel, which was inclined at different angles to mimic a person going up and down stairs. Using glass microspheres and lasers, they could visualize the flow motion behind the mannequins.

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The lab of Youyang Zhao, PhD, from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago developed a unique nanoparticle to deliver genome editing technology, including CRISPR/Cas9, to endothelial cells, which are cells that line blood vessel walls. This is the first time that vascular endothelial cells could be reached for genome editing, since the usual way to deliver CRISPR/Cas9 – through a virus – does not work for this cell type.

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Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world and is a leading cause of cancer-related death in men and women in the United States according to the American Cancer Society. Although cigarette smoking is the main cause of lung cancer and quitting would prevent a large number of lung cancer cases, it wouldn't prevent all of them.

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A potential new route to the diagnosis and treatment of ARDS comes from studying how neutrophils – the white blood cells responsible for detecting and eliminating harmful particles in the body – differentiate what materials to uptake by the material’s surface structure, and favor uptake of particles that exhibit “protein clumping.”

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Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who had a combination of high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, or other conditions associated with metabolic syndrome were at much higher risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome and death, according to an international study published in JAMA Network Open.

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Pulmonary embolisms are dangerous, lung-clogging blot clots. In a pilot study, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai showed for the first time that artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can detect signs of these clots in electrocardiograms (EKGs), a finding which may one day help doctors with screening.

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New recommendations are available to help guide physicians who must determine when and how to treat infants, children and adolescents with post-prematurity respiratory disease (PPRD).

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends to wear a mask indoors to "reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2, including alpha and delta variants, among adults and children." Several studies have proven the effectiveness of masks in limiting the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. However, this hasn't stopped some people from claiming that masks are hurting children that are forced to wear them in schools.

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Researchers demonstrate lower toxicity of nicotine-releasing electronic devices.

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Keck Medicine of USC frontline workers reveal what activities they do — and don’t — feel comfortable participating in this season

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In efforts to reduce radiation exposure from x-rays in children and reinforce guideline compliance, researchers from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and colleagues developed a simple diagnostic model that accurately predicts whether patients are at high risk or low risk for community acquired pneumonia, eliminating the need for x-ray confirmation.

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Physicians and researchers presented the latest scientific developments into pulmonary fibrosis and interstitial lung disease at its biennial PFF Summit in November. Registration is still open at PFFSummit.org to view all sessions on-demand through Feb. 20, 2022.

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Scientists at the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, Center of Biotechnology, located at Temple University’s College of Science and Technology, working with collaborators in Italy, have described the age-related differences in inflammatory response to an emerging immunotherapy treatment for Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) called PD-1 blockade.

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A new opinion piece published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society provides an exhaustive examination of the ethics of using hospital resources on unvaccinated-by-choice COVID-19 pneumonia patients, versus patients with other serious illnesses whose diseases are not progressing as quickly.

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Vaccine hesitancy is considered one of the top 10 threats to public health by the World Health Organization.

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Dec. 1, 2021— People living with HIV experience more severe outcomes and have higher comorbidities from COVID-19 than people not living with HIV, according to the 2020 UNAIDS Global Update. In mid-2021, most people living with HIV did not have access to COVID-19 vaccines. This World AIDS Day, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), of which the American Thoracic Society is a founding member, is calling on governments, health advocates and non-government organisations to strengthen their response to AIDS and COVID-19 by making COVID-19 vaccines more accessible worldwide.

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A simple change in the way donor cells are processed can maximize a single cell’s production of extracellular vesicles, which are small nanoparticles naturally secreted by cells, according to new research.

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Researchers at the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) at Case Western Reserve University have used artificial intelligence (AI) to identify patterns on computed tomography (CT) scans that offer new promise for treating patients with small cell lung cancer. Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) represents about 13% of all lung cancers, but grows faster and is more likely to spread than non-small cell lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

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The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is pleased to announce that Lungpacer Medical, a clinical stage medical device company pioneering a diaphragm pacing therapy system for critically ill patients who require mechanical ventilation, has won the TCT 2021 Shark Tank Innovation Competition, which took place during Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT), the world’s premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. The winner was also presented with the Jon DeHaan Foundation Award for Interventional Innovation.

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Physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston have received a seven-year, $22 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to help lead a multicenter clinical trial evaluating whether a novel immunosuppressant can reduce the risk of organ rejection after a lung transplant.

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New York, NY – Nov. 18, 2021— The American Thoracic Society, a global leader in respiratory health, is premiering an inspiring docuseries about the Society’s commitment to advancing global respiratory health through multidisciplinary collaboration, education, and advocacy.

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University at Buffalo research found that patients who earn less than $38,000 per year, identify as male or were treated in an urban hospital have a higher risk of being readmitted to a hospital within a month of discharge. The factors were associated with increased readmissions for patients treated for heart failure, pneumonia, acute myocardial infarction, and acute exacerbation of COPD.

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Based on preliminary findings from their research into renal and breast cancer, biochemists Archana Varadaraj and Narendiran Rajasekaran were recently awarded $469,000 by the National Institutes of Health to apply those findings to a potential treatment for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, a serious, irreversible lung disease affecting more than 100,000 Americans.

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In its latest clinical practice guideline on evaluation and treatment of asthma, an American Thoracic Society expert guidelines panel has addressed the use of fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) to guide the treatment of asthma. The guideline was published online in the Nov. 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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Scientists have compiled the most comprehensive road map of the protein composition of human lungs, providing a foundation to explore more about conditions like asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, COVID-19 and lung development in prematurely born infants.

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World COPD Day, Nov. 17, 2021, is an annual global initiative run by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD), members of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), of which the American Thoracic Society is a founding member. The goal of World COPD Day is to raise awareness and present new knowledge and therapeutic strategies for COPD worldwide.

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Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and rising air pollution levels, incidence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is anticipated to rise, urgently increasing the need for strong model systems. In APL Bioengineering, researchers describe a 3D cell culturing platform that allows study of lung fibroblasts and their microenvironment. The platform enables measurement of cell behaviors and microenvironment changes involved in the disease progression of IPF, and the platform's size and simplicity make it suitable for use in high-throughput drug screening protocols.

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Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a therapy that targets host cells rather than bacterial cells in treating bacterial pneumonia in rodents. The method involves white blood cells of the immune system called macrophages that eat bacteria, and a group of compounds that are naturally produced in mice and humans.

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A study of Veterans hospitalized for common conditions in the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system confirms that adjusted mortality rates are lower for Black compared to White Veterans – while also showing higher adjusted mortality rates among Hispanic Veterans relative to White Veterans across most risk-adjustment models, reports the December issue of Medical Care. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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On World Pneumonia Day, Nov. 12, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS), of which the American Thoracic Society is a founding member, calls for urgent and expedited progress to end the preventable burden of pneumonia.

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For the second straight year, flu season is emerging against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the number of flu cases was relatively low last year, experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine say that this year, it could be much higher.

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The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Oncology Research Program to oversee projects focused on improving patient care and outcomes in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer in collaboration with AstraZeneca.

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A new Cleveland Clinic study found that people with certain sleep disorders have more severe outcomes from COVID-19, including a 31 percent higher rate of hospitalization and mortality.

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Compared with all other racial and ethnic groups in the United States, Black people are disproportionally more affected by lung cancer. Sharon R. Pine, PhD, a resident member of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, associate professor of Pharmacology and Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and member of the Cancer Health Equity Center of Excellence e, discusses the barriers that Black people face, the research being done on racial health disparities and how action can be taken now.

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A biomedical engineering professor at Binghamton University, State University of New York has received a $2.4 million grant to develop a faster, less painful way to diagnose malignant solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs).

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Tackling pollution from the emission of nitrogen compounds, particularly ammonia, could reduce many of the 23.3 million years of life that were lost prematurely across the world in 2013 due to nitrogen-related air pollution.

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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recently published studies in basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts. Current advances include the cost-effectiveness of expanded lung cancer screening criteria, a novel biomarker for predicting immunotherapy responses, development of a technique for multiplex single-cell chromatin profiling, combination immunotherapy for bone metastatic prostate cancer, understanding drivers of lung cancer metastasis, and enabling new T cell therapies for treating COVID-19.

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One of the largest studies to investigate whether Preserved Ratio Impaired Spirometry (PRISm), an understudied low lung function state, is an early predictor of co-morbidities has found it is strongly associated with an increased risk of death. The analysis, led by University of Bristol researchers and published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, evaluated results of lung spirometry tests in over 350,000 UK adults and followed them up over 12 years.

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世界慢阻肺（COPD）日是11月17日. 伦敦 — 慢性阻塞性肺病（COPD）是一组进行性肺部疾病，包括慢性支气管炎和肺气肿，这些疾病会让患者难以呼吸。全球每年有数百万人因身患COPD而死亡。