In this issue of RESPIRATORY CARE, Ball and colleagues1 determined the optimal nebulizer configurations and positions for aerosol delivery in vitro with and without CPAP. They determined that with continuous high-flow CPAP, the greatest amount of albuterol delivered to a lung simulator (13.8 4.4%) was when the nebulizer was placed proximal to the lung simulator. Without CPAP, they determined th...

Background Physiotherapists (PTs) are ideally positioned to assist patients and families with inhalation therapies through monitoring, communication and education about available therapies and their proper use; indeed aerosoltherapy management is listed as part of Italian PTs' core competence and in the core syllabus for post-graduate training in respiratory physiotherapy. The aim of this study...

By manufacturing a single-particle system in two particulate forms (i.e., micrometer size and nanometer size), we have designed a bacterial vaccine form that exhibits improved efficacy of immunization. Microstructural properties are adapted to alter dispersive and aerosol properties independently. Dried "nanomicroparticle" vaccines possess two axes of nanoscale dimensions and a third axis of mi...

Incremental gains in understanding the influence of various factors on aerosol delivery in concert with technological advancements over the past 2 decades have fueled an ever burgeoning literature on aerosol therapy during mechanical ventilation. In-line use of pressurized metered-dose inhalers (pMDIs) and nebulizers is influenced by a host of factors, some of which are unique to ventilator-sup...

Aerosols have proven to be an effective form of drug delivery. Nevertheless, the development of devices as well as medical agents for aerosolization to treat mechanically ventilated newborns still presents a substantial challenge.1 Low tidal volumes and functional residual capacity, high breathing frequency, short aerosol particle residence time, and small airway diameters cause low aerosol dep...

Inhaled drug delivery is an important part of the armamentarium of clinicians caring for patients with pulmonary disease. An increasing variety of metered-dose inhalers and dry powder inhalers are becoming available. This has been driven by the development of new formulations and the impending ban on chlorofluorocarbon propellants. The result is a proliferation of devices, resulting in a confus...

Concerns related to pulmonary toxicity and non-specificity of nanoparticles have limited their clinical applications for aerosol delivery of chemotherapeutics in lung cancer. We hypothesized that pulmonary surfactant mimetic nanoparticles that offer pH responsive release specifically in tumor may be a possible solution to overcome these issues. We therefore developed lung surfactant mimetic and...

To circumvent significant toxicities associated with high dose systemic IL-2 treatment, organ-specific delivery such as inhalational IL-2 has been studied. Our pre-clinical data demonstrated therapeutic efficacy of aerosol IL-2 in a human OS mouse model with no toxicity. The number of OS lung metastases in the aerosol IL-2 treated group was significantly less than the aerosol PBS control group ...

Nonadherence to prescribed medications results in disease instability and poor clinical control, with increases in hospital admissions, emergency room visits, school/work absenteeism, morbidity, and mortality. Poor patient adherence to therapy can be due to lack of cognition, competence, or contrivance. Patients who have not been trained or fail to understand use of drug and device combinations...

BACKGROUND Iloprost (Ventavis) inhalation solution is approved in doses of 2.5 microg and 5.0 microg for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (World Health Organization group I) in patients with New York Heart Association class III or IV symptoms, delivered with 2 Adaptive Aerosol Delivery (AAD) systems: Prodose and I-neb. The HaloLite device was the first-generation AAD system used in ...