In patients requiring mechanical ventilation for acute lung injury or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), tidal volume reduction decreases mortality, but the mechanisms of the protective effect have not been fully explored. To test the hypothesis that alveolar macrophage activation is an early and critical event in the initiation of ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI), rats were venti...

Four cases of acute interstitial pneumonia (AIP) are described with special emphasis on clinical background, lung imaging and bronchoalveolar lavage findings. A retrospective chart review of four patients with histologically-proven AIP, diagnosed between 1998 and 2000, was carried out. Clinical data, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) findings, high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and histologi...

In recent years, the number of electronic cigarettes (ES) users has been growing steadily around world. ES heat and vaporize components a mixture propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, nicotine, flavors. Reports severe forms lung injury caused by use ES, some which have resulted in death, urge studying pathogenetic mechanisms such complications. One is activation nonspecific proteolysis accompan...

Airway inflammation is thought to play an important role in the pathogenesis ofasthma. We have used in situ hybridization and an immunoassay to determine whether granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) (a cytokine capable of eosinophil activation) is present in the airway of asthmatics (n = 6) who have 37.0±15.1% airway eosinophilia after endobronchial allergen challenge. Leve...

We present the results of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) performed in three patients with severe influenza A/H1N1 pneumonia complicated by acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Light microscopy analysis of BAL cytocentrifugates showed the presence of characteristic large, mononuclear, plasmoblastic/plasmocytoid-like cells never described before. Via transmission electron microscopy, these c...

Background: Idiopathic pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) has recently been recognised as a disease of impaired alveolar macrophage function caused by neutralising anti-granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating (antiGM-CSF) autoantibodies. Subcutaneous recombinant human GM-CSF is a novel treatment for PAP, but its mechanism of action is unclear. Methods: Clinical, functional, and bronchoalveo...

BACKGROUND Idiopathic pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) has recently been recognised as a disease of impaired alveolar macrophage function caused by neutralising anti-granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating (anti-GM-CSF) autoantibodies. Subcutaneous recombinant human GM-CSF is a novel treatment for PAP, but its mechanism of action is unclear. METHODS Clinical, functional, and bronchoalve...

Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1; CD54) is an adhesion molecule constitutively expressed in abundance on the cell surface of type I alveolar epithelial cells (AEC) in the normal lung and is a critical participant in pulmonary innate immunity. At many sites, ICAM-1 is shed from the cell surface as a soluble molecule (sICAM-1). Limited information is available regarding the presence, sou...

Neutrophil recruitment to the alveolar space is associated with increased epithelial permeability. The present study investigated in mice whether neutrophil recruitment to the lung leads to accumulation of plasma-derived host defense proteins in the alveolar space and whether respiratory burst contributes to this increase in permeability. Albumin, complement C1q, and IgM were increased in bronc...

BACKGROUND Repeated bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) has been used in animals to induce surfactant depletion and to study therapeutical interventions of subsequent respiratory insufficiency. Intratracheal administration of surface active agents such as perfluorocarbons (PFC) can prevent the alveolar collapse in surfactant depleted lungs. However, it is not known how BAL or subsequent PFC administra...