Progressive airflow limitation is a hallmark feature of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that ultimately leads to breathlessness, impaired quality of life, and reduced exercise capacity. Pharmacotherapy is used in patients with COPD to prevent and control symptoms, reduce both the frequency and severity of exacerbations, improve health status, and increase exercise tolerance. These ...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of morbidity, mortality, and health care expenditure worldwide. Relaxation of airway smooth muscle with inhaled bronchodilators is the cornerstone of treatment for stable COPD, with inhaled corticosteroids reserved for those with a history of exacerbations. Tiotropium has occupied center stage in COPD treatment for over 10 years an...

NVA237 (glycopyrronium bromide) is a once-daily long-acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA) in development for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The GLycopyrronium bromide in COPD airWays clinical Study 2 (GLOW2) evaluated the efficacy and safety of NVA237 in moderate-to-severe COPD over 52 weeks. Patients were randomised 2:1:1 to NVA237 50 μg, placebo or open-label tiotropium 18 μg fo...

Massive multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) relies on large antenna arrays that serve tens of user equipments in the same time-frequency resource. The presence of hundreds of antenna elements and radio-frequency (RF) chains at the base station (BS) enables high spectral efficiency via fine-grained beamforming, but poses significant practical implementation challenges. In particu...

OBJECTIVE Validation of Clinical Risk Index for Babies (CRIB II) score in predicting the neonatal mortality in preterm neonates < or = 32 weeks gestational age. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Tertiary care neonatal unit. SUBJECTS 86 consecutively born preterm neonates with gestational age < or = 32 weeks. METHODS The five variables related to CRIB II were recorded within the f...

Bronchodilator therapy is central to the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and are recommended as the preferred treatment by the Global Obstructive Lung Disease Initiative (GOLD). Long acting anti-muscarinics (LAMA) and long acting β₂ agonists (LABA) are both more effective than regular short-acting drugs but many patients remain symptomatic despite monotherapy with these drug...

Long-acting muscarinic antagonists (LAMAs) and short-acting β₂-adrenoceptor agonists (SABAs) play important roles in remedy for COPD. To propel a translational research for development of bronchodilator therapy, synergistic effects between SABAs with LAMAs were examined focused on Ca2+ signaling using simultaneous records of isometric tension and F340/F380 in fura-2-loaded tracheal smooth muscl...

Identifying patients at risk of exacerbations and managing them appropriately to reduce this risk represents an important clinical challenge. Numerous treatments have been assessed for the prevention of exacerbations and their efficacy may differ by patient phenotype. Given their centrality in the treatment of COPD, there is strong rationale for maximizing bronchodilation as an initial strategy...

Cell migration, which is central to a wide variety of life processes, involves integration of the extracellular matrix (ECM) with the internal cytoskeleton and motor proteins via receptors spanning the plasma membrane. Cell migration can be induced by a variety of signals, including gradients of external soluble molecules, differences in ECM composition, or electrical gradients. Current in vitr...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) pharmacological treatment aims to reduce symptoms, represented mostly by dyspnoea and its impact on daily life, and future risk, i.e. lung function decline, mortality and exacerbations [1]. Inhaled therapies, including long-acting bronchodilators (LABD) and inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), are the main treatments recommended for COPD patients. LABD hav...