Bronchiectasis is a parenchymal lung disease which develops as a consequence of chronic inflammation and recurrent pulmonary infections. It is known that platelets have a role in inflammation and progressive pulmonary damage. Mean platelet volume (MPV) values as a marker of platelet activation, and might be used as an indicator of inflammation. Eighty-one children with the diagnosis of bronchie...

BACKGROUND Some treatments for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can reduce exacerbations, and thus could have a favourable impact on overall healthcare costs. OBJECTIVE To evaluate a new method for assessing the potential cost savings of COPD controller medications based on the incidence of exacerbations and their related resource utilization in the general population. METHODS P...

PURPOSE Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations are the leading cause of hospital admission and death among chronic bronchitis (CB) patients. This study estimated annual COPD exacerbation rates, related costs, and their predictors among patients treated for CB. METHODS This was a retrospective study using claims data from the HealthCore Integrated Research Database (HIRD(SM...

Human peripheral blood T-lymphocytes adhere to myelinated sections of human and nonhuman brain tissue. No lymphocyte adherence is seen to gray matter. Lymphocytes from patients with MS adhere more than control lymphocytes. Lymphocyte adherence in patients with stable MS and in healthy controls did not vary more than 15%. Lymphocyte adherence in MS patients was decreased significantly during exa...

The role of Chlamydia pneumoniae in asthma has drawn much attention in recent years. In this study we assessed the prevalence of C. pneumoniae infections in patients with chronic stable and acute exacerbation of asthma and compared it with normal population. Twenty adult patients with chronic stable asthma and 21 patients with acute exacerbations of asthma and 41 matched control subjects were s...

Exacerbations are important events for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and key outcomes in COPD studies and trials. Exacerbations have an impact on health status and contribute to disease progression, and exacerbation prevention is a key goal of therapy in COPD. A majority of COPD exacerbations are triggered by respiratory viral infections and/or bacterial infections....

In patients with COPD, an acute worsening of respiratory symptoms is often described as an exacerbation. Exacerbations are associated with a significant increase in mortality, hospitalization, and health-care utilization, but there is currently no widely accepted definition of what constitutes an exacerbation of COPD. This paper summarizes the discussions of the workshop, "COPD: Working Towards...

Introduction: Some evidence exists about the possible relationship between the serum uric acid (UA) and exacerbation of the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Present study intended to compare the COPD-related variables and the one-year outcome between the two groups of patients with the high and low UA. Material and Methods: This cohort study consisted of 112 patients with COPD exac...

Sputum induction (SI) is considered to be a safe tool for assessing airway inflammation in stable patients with COPD, but little is known about its safety during exacerbations. We therefore assessed the safety of SI during COPD exacerbations. SI data from 44 COPD patients were assessed both in the stable phase and during exacerbation. The median FEV1 for the stable phase and exacerbation were 6...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is defined independently of exacerbations, which are largely a feature of moderate-to-severe disease. This article is the result of a workshop that tried to define exacerbations of COPD for use in clinical, pharmacological and epidemiological studies. The conclusions represent the consensus of those present. This review describes definitions, ascerta...