The ambition of all athletes is to outperform competitors in their chosen discipline. To this end, ever more sophisticated training schedules are used to maximise physical performance. In recent years some sportsmen and women have resorted to illegal pharmacological methods to augment their training programmes and so gain an unfair advantage over their rivals. Patients with chronic obstructive ...

Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) colonized with Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) have worse prognosis compared with patients who are not. BPI-ANCA is an anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody against BPI (bactericidal/permeability increasing protein) correlating with P. aeruginosa colonization and adverse long time prognosis. Whether it provides additional information as compared to stand...

Introduction. The European Respiratory Society, the American Thoracic and Russian Society are currently working on updating technical standards interpretive strategies for routine lung function tests. There is a search recommendations best choice of reference values, optimal limits normal severity grading detected impairments. An important step in this work standartization pulmonary tests inter...

BACKGROUND Severe alpha 1-antitrypsin (AAT) deficiency (PiZZ) is associated with an increased risk of lung emphysema, especially in smokers. The aim of this study was to identify risk factors other than smoking for declining lung function. METHODS Lung function was studied in 225 self-reported never-smoking PiZZ individuals included in the Swedish AAT deficiency register. RESULTS Lung funct...

BACKGROUND Exposure to diesel exhaust particles (DEP) is thought to exacerbate many pre-existing respiratory diseases, including asthma, bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, however, there is a paucity of data on whether DEP exacerbates illness due to respiratory viral infection. OBJECTIVES To assess the physiological consequences of an acute DEP exposure during the peak of i...

Mechanical ventilation may lead to an impairment of the endogenous surfactant system, which is one of the mechanisms by which this intervention contributes to the progression of acute lung injury. The most extensively studied mechanism of surfactant dysfunction is serum protein inhibition. However, recent studies indicate that hydrophobic components of surfactant may also contribute. It was hyp...

Introduction: Pulmonary involvement secondary to Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in SSc patients. We designed this study to determine the correlation of important lung function parameters with lung High Resolution CT (HRCT) scan findings. Materials and Methods: Thirty–two consecutive diffuse SSc patients with pulmonary fibrosis were enrolled in this cross...