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Among the general U.S. population, people who are uninsured are about half as likely to receive critical care services as those with insurance, according to systematic review of the literature by the American Thoracic Society’s Health Disparities Group. They also found that once admitted to the hospital intensive care unit, uninsured patients are less likely to have invasive procedures or pulmonary artery catheterizations and more likely to have life support withdrawn.

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Both ozone and primary pollutants from traffic substantially increase asthma-related emergency department visits in children, especially during the warm season, according to researchers from the Department of Environmental Health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta.

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More than half of children who were born very early—at 25 weeks or less (normal gestation is around 40 weeks)— have abnormal lung function and are twice as likely as their full-term peers to have a diagnosis of asthma, according to U.K. researchers, who followed a national cohort of extremely preterm infants to age 11.

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Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with an increased risk of stroke in middle-aged and older adults, especially men, according to new results from new research supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health. Overall, sleep apnea more than doubles the risk of stroke in men.

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The ATS has released an official policy statement of pay-for-performance (P4P) in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. In the statement, the Society encourages clinicians in these fields to participate in P4P programs and views them as an opportunity to partner with healthcare payers, accrediting organizations, governmental oversight groups and others to improve quality, rather than as a threat to autonomy and independence.

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March 24, 2010, will mark World TB Day. On this day around the world, the public health and scientific community will raise public awareness about tuberculosis and the challenges that remain in controlling it globally, such controlling drug resistant TB and as the urgent need to develop new TB diagnostic, treatment and prevention tools.

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Stress during pregnancy may raise the risk of asthma in offspring, according to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. The researchers investigated differences in immune function markers in cord blood between infants born to mothers in high stress environments and those born to mothers with lower stress and found marked differences in patterns that may be associated with asthma risk later in life.

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Researchers in Australia have demonstrated that blocking a certain protein can reduce or prevent cigarette smoke-induced lung inflammation in mice. Inflammation underlies the disease process of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and many other smoking-related ailments.

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During the 2010: The Year of the Lung campaign, the ATS and other members of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) are honoring World Sleep Day, March 19, by raising awareness of sleep-disordered breathing, an underdiagnosed and potentially dangerous condition if left untreated. Treatment of sleep-disordered breathing can improve symptoms and may reduce health risks related to the condition.

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The American Thoracic Society has released a new official clinical policy statement on congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS), a disorder of respiratory and autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation. The ANS regulates reflexive acts, including heart rate and blood pressure, digestion, body temperature and pain perception.

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Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found that using high-resolution CT-scans to screen for lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM, is cost-effective in non-smoking women between 25 and 54 who come to the emergency room for the first time with a collapsed lung.

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Researchers have demonstrated the safety of a potential vaccine against mesothelioma, a rare cancer associated primarily with asbestos exposure. The vaccine, which infuses uses a patient’s own dendritic cells (DC) with antigen from the patient’s tumor, was able to induce a T-cell response against mesothelioma tumors.

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Patients hospitalized with mild to moderate community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) should not be routinely prescribed prednisolone, a corticosteroid, as it is associated with a recurrence of symptoms after its withdrawal, according to the first randomized double-blind clinical trial to address the subject.

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The ATS and the European Respiratory Society have issued official standards for the quantitative assessment of lung structure.

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Children with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may one day be able to have an injection or use a throat spray instead of getting their tonsils removed to cure their snoring, according to a new study from the University of Chicago, which found that a specific gene product may be responsible for the proliferation of adenotonsillar tissue that can cause pediatric OSA.

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Even healthy people exposed to ultrafine particulate pollution associated with traffic and fossil-fuel combustion for just two hours show changes in heart rhythm and evidence of clot formation that may herald the potential for serious cardiac events, according to research from the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) adversely affects glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Chicago.

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Brazilian researchers have performed the first-ever autopsy study to examine the precise causes of death in victims of the H1N1 swine flu.

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Older adults with long-term exposure to higher levels of pollution are at higher risk for hospitalization for pneumonia, according to researchers in Canada.

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Researchers at the University of Chicago have discovered a technique that is able to determine whether a child has obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) or habitual snoring by screening their urine.

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Asthmatic smokers may be able to reverse some of the damage to their lungs that exacerbates asthmatic symptoms just by putting down their cigarettes, according to research out of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

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Exposure shortly after birth to ambient metals from fuel oil combustion and particles from diesel emissions is associated with respiratory symptoms in young inner-city children, according to a new study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

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Children who are exposed to high levels of traffic-related pollution and high levels of indoor endotoxin early in life have six times the risk of developing persistent wheezing by age three than children exposed to low levels of traffic and indoor-related pollutants, according to new research from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

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Infants who are exposed to higher levels of air pollution are at increased risk for bronchiolitis, according to a new study.

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The ATS has issued an official statement that outlines the Society’s position on research, training, education, patient care and advocacy. The statement, which appears in the November 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, also makes specific recommendations on how elements of the organization can make these policies a part of new and ongoing projects.

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Difficult-to-treat asthma often may have more to do with patients who do not take their medication as instructed than ineffective medication, according to researchers in Northern Ireland.

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Patients who die in the hospital in the United States are almost five times as likely to have spent part of their last hospital stay in the ICU than patients in England. What’s more, over the age of 85, ICU usage among terminal patients is eight times higher in the U.S. than in England, according to new research from Columbia University that compared the two countries’ use of intensive care services during final hospitalizations.

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Overweight individuals are not just at greater risk of having sleep-disordered-breathing (SDB), they are also likely to suffer greater consequences, according to new research.

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Patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can benefit from triple therapy that includes a long-acting β-agonist (LABA), an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) and an anti-muscarinic agent, according to researchers in Germany.

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Women in Central Mexico who used a vented stove instead of the traditional indoor open fire, experienced improved respiratory health on par with a pack-a-day smoker kicking the habit, according to a recent study.

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Active tuberculosis can be rapidly identified in patients with negative sputum tests by a new method, according to European researchers. Active tuberculosis (TB) is the seventh-leading cause of death worldwide, and while the diagnosis of active TB can be rapidly established when the bacteria can be identified on sputum microscopy, in about half of all cases, the TB bacterium cannot be detected, making another diagnostic option critical in efforts to control the spread of TB.

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New research hints that the common belief that kids who go to daycare have lower rates of asthma and allergy later in life might be nothing more than wishful thinking. While young children in daycare definitely do get more illnesses and experience more respiratory symptoms as a result, any perceived protection these exposures afford against asthma and allergy seem to disappear by the time the child hits the age of eight.

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A new vaccine against pneumonia may offer better protection from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients than the currently accepted vaccine, according to recent research that will be published in the September 15 issue of the American Journal of the Respiratory and Critical Care Journal, a publication of the American Thoracic Society.

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Smoking is a risk factor for active tuberculosis (TB) disease, according to a new study on TB incidence in Taiwan.

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Mortality remains high among patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension awaiting lung transplant, despite changes to the allocation system that were designed to reduce mortality and increase the equitable distribution of donor organs, according to new research out of University of California San Francisco.

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A new technique may help clinicians hone in on a diagnosis in patients presenting with a pleural effusion of unknown cause.

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Taking dexamathasone prophlyactically may improve exercise capacity in some mountaineers, according to Swiss researchers. Dexamathasone, known popularly to climbers as "dex," has been used for years to treat altitude-related symptoms in mountaineers, but has never been tested for its ability to improve exercise capacity at high altitude.

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Use of a common antibiotic may be undercutting its utility as a first-line defense against drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Fluoroquinolones are the most commonly prescribed class of antibiotics in the U.S. and are used to fight a number of different infections such as sinusitis and pneumonia. They are also an effective first line of defense against TB infections that show drug resistance. New research shows, however, that widespread general use of fluoroquinolones may be creating a strain of fluoroquinolone-resistant TB.

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Some caregivers of critical care patients prefer doctors to keep their opinions on life support decisions to themselves, according to new research that challenges long-held beliefs in the critical care community.

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Coal dust exposure is directly linked to severity of emphysema in smokers and nonsmokers alike, according to new research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

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Ozone exposure, even at levels deemed safe by current clean air standards, can have a significant and negative effect on lung function, according to researchers at the University of California Davis.

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Lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) can have a significantly beneficial effect in patients with severe emphysema, according to the first ever study to randomize emphysema patients to receive either LVRS or non-surgical medical care.

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Infants who weigh less than five and a half pounds at birth often enter the world with a host of medical complications, including respiratory problems. New research shows that these respiratory problems may persist well beyond their infancy and childhood and into adulthood.

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New research may help doctors pinpoint when patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) are becoming dangerously ill. The findings may also point the way to interventions that could sustain the lives of IPF patients until life-saving transplants could be performed.

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Severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with lower cognitive function in older adults, according to research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Researchers compared cognitive performance in over 4,150 adults with and without COPD and found that individuals with severe COPD had significantly lower cognitive function than those without, even after controlling for confounding factors such as comorbidities.

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The American Thoracic Society and the European Respiratory Society have released official standards for clinical trials and practice with respect to the assessment of asthma. The statement appears in the July 1 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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Stroke patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) who undergo treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) following their stroke may substantially reduce their risk of death, according to Spanish research to be published in the July 1 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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A lung cancer treatment that inhibits nicotine receptors was shown to double survival time in mice, according to Italian researchers. The results of the early phase animal model study were reported in the June 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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A new lung cancer therapy employing a vaporized viral vector to deliver a cancer-inhibiting molecule directly to lung tissue shows early promise in mouse trials, according to researchers at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in Korea.

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Patients with moderate COPD were randomized to receive "usual care" or to undergo an interdisciplinary, community-based program (INTERCOM) that offered an intensive lifestyle moderation phase of four months, during which patients were instructed in detail to perform two 15-minute intervals of pleasurable walking or cycling, and offered instruction in other lifestyle changes such as nutrition and smoking cessation.