BACKGROUND Asthma exacerbations are frequent in patients with severe disease. This report describes results from two retrospective cohort studies describing exacerbation frequency and risk, emergency department (ED)/hospital re-admissions, and asthma-related costs by asthma severity in the US and UK. METHODS Patients with asthma in the US-based Clinformatics™ DataMart Multiplan IMPACT (2010-2...

BACKGROUND Therapy with antibiotics influences recovery only in selected cases of COPD exacerbations. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of procalcitonin guidance compared to standard therapy with antibiotic prescriptions in patients experiencing exacerbations of COPD. METHODS A total of 208 consecutive patients requiring hospitalization for COPD exacerbation were randomized at the index ex...

BACKGROUND Guidelines recommend inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) for patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Most COPD patients are managed in primary care and receive ICS long-term and irrespective of severity. The effect of withdrawing ICS from COPD patients in primary care is unknown. METHODS In a pragmatic randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 31 pr...

BACKGROUND Adrenomedullin (ADM) is a regulatory peptide with many biological actions, but little is known about its role in patients with COPD exacerbation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic value of plasma ADM levels on hospital admission in patients with COPD exacerbation. METHODS Consecutive subjects admitted to the hospital for COPD exacerbation were ...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary exacerbations (PEx) are a major driver of morbidity and mortality in cystic fibrosis and reducing their frequency by extending the time between them is an important therapeutic goal. Although treatment decisions for exacerbations are often made based on dynamic changes in lung function, it is not clear if these changes truly impact future exacerbation risk. We analyzed adul...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is an important treatment option for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients and might contribute to a reduction in exacerbation and exacerbation-related hospitalization rate. METHODS In this prospective study, all COPD patients that completed a comprehensive pulmonary rehabilitation program (PRP) between June 2006 and December 2012 were ...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations are associated with increased airway and systemic inflammation, though relationships between exacerbation recovery, recurrent exacerbation and inflammation have not been previously reported. In the present study, inflammatory changes at COPD exacerbations were related to clinical nonrecovery and recurrent exacerbations within 50 days. S...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate a graded treadmill test for retest reliability (RTR) and interrater reliability (IRR) in the evaluation of the physiologic effects of symptom exacerbation from concussion. DESIGN Prospective case series (RTR) and blinded rater assessment of 10 actors portraying patients with and without symptom exacerbation (IRR). SETTING University Sports Medicine Concussion Clinic. ...

BACKGROUND While a subgroup of patients with exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) clearly benefit from antibiotics, their identification remains challenging. We hypothesised that selective assessment of the balance between the two dominant bacterial groups (Gammaproteobacteria (G) and Firmicutes (F)) in COPD sputum samples might reveal a subgroup with a bacterial commun...