Studies in rodents indicate that the cytokine, interleukin (IL)-17, links the activation of T-lymphocytes to neutrophilic inflammation. The aim of the current study was to determine whether free, soluble IL-17 protein can be released during severe inflammation in human airways. Fifteen healthy subjects were exposed to a swine confinement in order to induce severe inflammation characterized by h...

Kininogenase activity was detected by cleavage of radiolabeled substrate (125I-high molecular weight kininogen [HMWK]) in 22 of 24 bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid samples from 17 asthmatics who either responded to aerosolized allergen challenge or had symptoms of active asthma. In contrast, six of seven normal controls lacked enzymatic activity. Levels of free immunoreactive kinin found in B...

Several methodologies have been developed to assess alveolocapillary membrane permeability in acute lung injury. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of FITC-dextran compared with radioactive tracers to assess lung permeability alterations. After intraperitoneal administration of alpha-naphthylthiourea (ANTU, 50 mg/kg) or DMSO-ANTU vehicle, the animals were euthanized and ...

BACKGROUND Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a devastating lung disorder of unknown aetiology, and chronic hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP), a disease provoked by an immunopathologic reaction to inhaled antigens, are two common interstitial lung diseases with uncertain pathogenic mechanisms. Previously, we have shown in other upper and lower airway diseases that immunoglobulin free light ch...

BACKGROUND It has previously been shown that smokers with computed tomographic (CT) evidence of subclinical emphysema have signs of neutrophil activation, despite having no appreciable increase in the number of neutrophils in their bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. METHODS The levels of the following chemoattractants in BAL fluid from 61 community based older volunteers classified into four...

BACKGROUND Diverse microbiota exist in the lower respiratory tract. Although next generation sequencing (NGS) is the most widely used microbiome analysis technique, it is difficult to implement NGS in clinical microbiology laboratories. Therefore, we evaluated the performance of conventional culture methods together with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectromet...

BACKGROUND A study was undertaken to evaluate the local and systemic inflammatory response associated with pulmonary complications in immunocompromised patients and potential implications regarding severity and prognosis. METHODS Levels of different inflammatory mediators were measured in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and serum on days 1 and 4 after the identification of the pulmonar...

Clinical experience with the impact of serum biomarkers for invasive fungal disease (IFD) varies markedly in hemato-oncology. Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) is the most common manifestation, so we evaluated biomarkers in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid. An Aspergillus-specific lateral-flow device (LFD), quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR), and the galactomannan (GM) test were used with...

BACKGROUND Age related changes in the immune system have been studied frequently but a possible relation to sex has not, to our knowledge, previously been examined. The effect of age and sex on the composition of lymphocyte subsets in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and peripheral blood was therefore examined. METHODS Bronchoscopy with lavage was performed in 32 healthy non-atopic, non-smo...

BACKGROUND Sarcoidosis is associated with an increase in the number of alveolar T cells (CD3(+) cells) and an increase of the CD3(+)CD4(+) lymphocyte subset. However, the number of lymphocytes and the CD4/CD8 ratio in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid are highly variable in sarcoidosis. Comparative studies have demonstrated that geographic and ethnic factors are linked to the specific characte...