Forced exhalation

OBJECTIVE: To verify the accuracy of the maximum phonation time of the vowel /a/ (MPT/a/), fricative /s/ (MPT/s/), number counting (MPTC), and number reached in this count (CN) to estimate forced vital capacity (FVC) in patients with post-COVID-19 syndrome. METHOD: Cross-sectional study involving adult patients, who were admitted to the intensive care unit and referred to the Post-COVID-19 Rehabilitation Outpatient Clinic. Voice function was assessed using a Vocal Handicap Index (VHI) self-assessment questionnaire and MPT tests...

INTRODUCTION: Following the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in March 2020, pulmonary function testing (PFT) laboratories underwent a transformation, with a reduction in the number of tests or closure in some cases. The aim of this work was to know the activity of PFT in Spain and the modification of this activity due to the pandemic. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A protocolised survey was carried out to members of the PFT laboratories through the Spanish Society of Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR)...

OBJECTIVE: Severe spinal deformity results in restrictive pulmonary disease from thoracic distortions and lung-volume limitations. Though spirometry and body plethysmography are widely accepted tests for pulmonary function tests (PFTs), they are time-consuming and require patient compliance. This study investigates whether surface topographic [surface topography (ST)] measurements of body volume difference (BVD) and torso volume difference between maximum inhale and exhale correlate to values determined on PFTs...

BACKGROUND: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affecting 334 million people in the world remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Proper diagnosis of COPD is still a challenge and largely solely based on spirometric criteria. We aimed to investigate the potential of nitrosative/oxidative stress and related metabolic biomarkers in exhaled breath condensate (EBC) to discriminate COPD patients. METHODS: Three hundred three participants were randomly selected from a 15,000-transit worker cohort within the Respiratory disease Occupational Biomonitoring Collaborative Project (ROBoCoP)...

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the nutritional status of children with cystic fibrosis (CF) and understand the correlation between malnutrition and clinical characteristics as well as lung function. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed on clinical data of CF children admitted from January 2016 to June 2023. Clinical characteristics of CF children with different nutritional statuses were compared, and the correlation between malnutrition and lung function was analyzed...

BACKGROUND: Changes from baseline in fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) and blood eosinophil count (Eos) may be related to efficacy outcomes in dupilumab-treated patients with moderate-to-severe asthma. OBJECTIVE: This post-hoc analysis investigated biomarker changes in placebo- and dupilumab-treated patients with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma enrolled in QUEST (NCT02414854). METHODS: Spline analyses of annualized severe exacerbation rate (AER) and change from baseline in pre-bronchodilator (BD) forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1 ) at Week 52 were performed as a function of fold-change in FeNO at Week 52, and maximum fold-change in Eos over Week 0-12 (also change from baseline in pre-bronchodilator FEV1 at Week 12)...

BACKGROUND: No studies have investigated whether high-sensitivity C reactive protein (hsCRP) can be used to predict the forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1)/estimated value of FEV1 (FEV1%pred). This study aimed to assess the association between hsCRP and FEV1%pred in middle-aged and elderly individuals without underlying lung disease. METHODS: The data for this study were obtained from a prospective cohort study that included 1047 middle-aged and elderly citizens from Beijing aged 40-75 years without any evidence of underlying lung diseases with FEV1 >70% after receiving inhalational bronchodilators...

PURPOSE: Dupilumab, a fully human monoclonal antibody, blocks the shared receptor component for interleukins-4/-13, key and central drivers of type 2 inflammation in multiple diseases. This post hoc analysis of the Phase 3 LIBERTY ASTHMA VOYAGE study (NCT02948959) evaluated the efficacy of dupilumab in children aged 6 to 11 years with moderate-to-severe asthma with a type 2 inflammatory phenotype (blood eosinophil count ≥150 cells/µL or fractional exhaled nitric oxide [FeNO] ≥20 ppb) and a history of 1, 2, or ≥3 prior exacerbations...

Spirometry is a lung function test involving deep inhalation and forceful deep exhalation. It is widely used to obtain objective information about airflow limitation and to diagnose lung diseases. In contrast, tidal spirometry is based on normal breathing and therefore much more convenient, but it is hardly used in medical care and its relation with conventional (forced) spirometry is largely unknown. Therefore, the objective of this work is to reveal the relation between tidal and forced spirometry. Employing the strong correspondence between the forced flow-volume curves and the Tiffeneau-Pinelli (TP) index, we present a method to obtain (a) the expected tidal flow-volume curve for a given TP-index, and (b) the expected TP-index for a given tidal curve...

OBJECTIVE: To explore a simple method for measuring the dynamic intrinsic positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEPi) during invasive mechanical ventilation. METHODS: A 60-year-old male patient was admitted to the critical care medicine department of Dongying People's Hospital in September 2020. He underwent invasive mechanical ventilation treatment for respiratory failure due to head and chest trauma, and incomplete expiratory flow occurred during the treatment. The expiratory flow-time curve of this patient was served as the research object...

INTRODUCTION: Elevated particulate matter (PM) concentrations of anthropogenic and/or desert dust origin are associated with increased morbidity among children with asthma. OBJECTIVE: The Mitigating the Health Effects of Desert Dust Storms Using Exposure-Reduction Approaches randomised controlled trial assessed the impact of exposure reduction recommendations, including indoor air filtration, on childhood asthma control during high desert dust storms (DDS) season in Cyprus and Greece...

BACKGROUND: Severe, uncontrolled asthma and asthma exacerbations in children are associated with abnormal lung function and airway development, and increased risk of chronic obstructive lung disease in adulthood. The rationale for this post hoc analysis was to explore the relationship between changes in asthma exacerbation rates and lung function in children treated with dupilumab. METHODS: This post hoc analysis included children aged 6 to 11 years with uncontrolled, moderate-to-severe type 2 asthma (blood eosinophils ≥150 cells/μL or fractional exhaled nitric oxide ≥20 ppb) who received dupilumab or placebo in the phase 3 LIBERTY ASTHMA VOYAGE study (NCT02948959)...

BACKGROUND: Asthma is a global public health concern. The underlying pathogenetic mechanisms of asthma were poorly understood. This study aims to explore potential biomarkers associated with asthma and analyze the pathological role of immune cell infiltration in the disease. METHODS: The gene expression profiles of induced sputum were obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus datasets (GSE76262 and GSE137268) and were combined for analysis. Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) was identified as the core gene by the intersection of two different machine learning algorithms, namely, least absolute shrinkage and selector operation (LASSO) regression and support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE), and the top 10 core networks based on Cytohubba...

BACKGROUND: Fighter aircraft pilots are regularly exposed to physiological challenges from high acceleration (Gz ) forces, as well as increased breathing pressure and oxygen supply in the support systems. We studied whether effects on the lung and systemic oxidative stress were detectable after real training flights comprising of a wide variety of exposure conditions, and their combinations. METHODS: Thirty-five pilots of the German Air Force performed 145 flights with the Eurofighter Typhoon...

BACKGROUND: There is no uniform standard for a strongly positive bronchodilation test (BDT) result. In addition, the role of bronchodilator response in differentiating between asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and asthma-COPD overlap (ACO) in patients with a positive BDT result is unclear. We explored a simplified standard of a strongly positive BDT result and whether bronchodilator response combined with fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) can differentiate between asthma, COPD, and ACO in patients with a positive BDT result...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of type 2 inflammation markers blood eosinophils (EOS) and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) on bronchodilator responsiveness (BDR) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). METHODS: This study was conducted among 389 patients with an established diagnosis of COPD in our hospital from October, 2019 to October, 2023, who all underwent bronchial dilation test (BDT) of the large and small airways. Based on smoking history, blood EOS, and FeNO, these patients were divided group A (blood EOS < 300/μL + FeNO < 35 ppb + smoking history < 20 pack-years), group B (blood EOS < 300/μL+FeNO < 35 ppb+smoking history ≥20 pack-years), group C (blood EOS ≥300/μL or FeNO≥35 ppb+smoking history ≥20 pack-years), and group D (blood EOS ≥300/μL or FeNO ≥35 ppb+smoking history < 20 pack-years) for analyzing the relationship between clinical indexes and BDR...

In distinguishing the allergic asthma (AA) phenotype, it has been identified that specific biomarkers could assist; however, none of them are considered ideal. This study aimed to analyze three groups of biologically active substances in the serum. Twenty steroid-free AA patients, sensitized to Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus , and sixteen healthy subjects (HSs) were enrolled in this study. Blood samples were collected from all patients. Additionally, all AA patients underwent a bronchial allergen challenge (BAC) with Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus , all of which were positive, and blood samples were collected again 24 h later...

BACKGROUND: TRAVERSE (NCT02134028), a phase 3 open-label extension study, assessed dupilumab safety and efficacy in patients with asthma aged ≥12 years who completed a previous dupilumab asthma study. This analysis evaluated changes in multiple lung function parameters in patients with moderate-to-severe asthma with elevated type 2 biomarkers (baseline eosinophils ≥150 cells·μL-1 or fractional exhaled nitric oxide [FeNO] ≥25 ppb) who completed QUEST (parent study) and 2 years of dupilumab treatment in TRAVERSE...

BACKGROUND: Blood eosinophils and fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) are prognostic biomarkers for exacerbations and predict responses to dupilumab in adolescents and adults with asthma. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between baseline blood eosinophils and FeNO and response to dupilumab in children with asthma. METHODS: Children aged 6 to 11 years with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma (n = 408) were randomized to receive dupilumab 100/200 mg by body weight, or volume-matched placebo every 2 weeks for 52 weeks...

BACKGROUND: Moderate-to-late preterm birth (32 to <37 weeks of gestation) has been associated with impaired lung function in adolescence, but data in adulthood and physiological phenotyping beyond spirometry are scarce. We aimed to investigate lung function development from adolescence into young adulthood and to provide physiological phenotyping in individuals born moderate-to-late preterm. METHODS: Lung function data from individuals born moderate-to-late preterm (n=110) and term (37 to <42 weeks of gestation, n=1895) in the Swedish birth cohort BAMSE were used for analysis and included dynamic spirometry, fractional exhaled nitric oxide and multiple breath nitrogen wash-out...