Elevated concentrations of hyaluronan (HA) are associated with the accumulation of macrophages in the lung after injury. We have investigated the role of HA in the inflammatory and fibrotic responses to lung injury using the intratracheal instillation of bleomycin in rats as a model. After bleomycin-induced lung injury, both HA content in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and staining for HA in macr...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) is very uncommon in horses worldwide. CASE PRESENTATION In the current study, an eight-year-old male Thoroughbred in good body condition was admitted to the Equine Clinic at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital in 2005 due to bilateral epistaxis accompanied by coughing. Routine examinations were conducted to determine ...

Diagnosing bacterial infection (BI) remains a challenge for the attending physician. An ex vivo infection model based on human fixed polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) gives an autofluorescence signal that differs significantly between stimulated and unstimulated cells. We took advantage of this property for use in an in vivo pneumonia mouse model and in patients hospitalized with bacterial p...

Aim of this study was to investigate a pseudo-outbreak of Mycobacterium gordonae analyzing isolates detected from clinical and environmental samples. Mycobacterium gordonae was detected in 7 out of 497 broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL) samples after bronchoscopy procedure in patients admitted to a teaching hospital between January and April 2013. During this pseudo-outbreak clinical, epidemiologica...

Protracted bacterial bronchitis (PBB) is the common cause of chronic cough in children worldwide, but its etiology has not been fully recognized in China. We retrospectively investigated a total of 66 hospitalized infants under the age of three years with chronic wet cough enrolled in the Affiliated Children's Hospital of Soochow University from October 2010 to March 2014. All patients underwen...

BACKGROUND Lower respiratory tract infections are among important causes of morbidity and mortality for all age groups. The emergence of multidrug resistant Gram-negative bacilli is an issue of increasing concern. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective study including respiratory specimens (sputum and BAL) was conducted in our tertiary care centre. Samples were processed for microscopy, cultur...

Dendritic cells (DCs) and their precursors play important roles, not only as antigen presenting cells, but components of the immunoregulatory network. Depending on their lineage, activation and differentiation state, DCs can promote a strong T-cell response or a state of anergy, and can polarize the T helper response in the direction of TH1 or TH2. The lung comprises one of the major interfaces...

RATIONALE Pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive disease with only few treatment options available at the moment. Recently, the nucleoside uridine has been shown to exert anti-inflammatory effects in different animal models, e.g. in acute lung injury or bronchial asthma. METHOD Therefore, we investigated the influence of uridine supplementation on inflammation and fibrosis in the classical bleom...

Inflammation is central to the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a pulmonary disorder characterized by chronic bronchitis, chronic airway obstruction, emphysema, associated to progressive and irreversible decline of lung function. Emerging genetic and pharmacological evidence suggests that IL-1-like cytokines are highly detected in the sputum and broncho-alveolar lava...