BACKGROUND Recent studies have demonstrated the activation of coagulation pathways in asthmatic airways. This study aimed to determine systemic blood coagulation during asthma exacerbation compared with the stable state in children. METHODS Pediatric patients (aged between 5 and 15 years) suffering from asthma exacerbation were enrolled. von Willebrand factor (vWF), plasminogen activator inhi...

BACKGROUND The natural history and time course of the onset of exacerbation events of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is incompletely understood. METHODS A prospective cohort of 212 patients with COPD was monitored using daily symptom diaries for a median of 2.8 years to characterise the time course of COPD exacerbation onset. Decision rules based on weighted self-reported sympto...

RATIONALE Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive, uniformly fatal interstitial lung disease. An acute exacerbation of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is an episode of acute respiratory worsening without an identifiable etiology. Occult viral infection has been proposed as a possible cause of acute exacerbation. OBJECTIVES To use unbiased genomics-based discovery methods to define the ro...

BACKGROUND/AIM Lysozyme (mucopeptide N-acetyl-muramyl hydrolase) is widely used as a mucolytic and anti-inflammatory agent in Japan. We evaluated the effects of long-term lysozyme administration on COPD exacerbation. METHODS In a 1-year, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel trial, patients with moderate-to-severe COPD and one or more episodes of COPD exacerbation in the prev...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to understand the outcomes for patients admitted to hospital for an acute exacerbation of COPD, and to determine the factors influencing quality of life and health service utilization of patients with COPD. METHODOLOGY Hospital outcomes of 282 patients with moderate and severe COPD, for an acute exacerbation, were retrospectively evaluated. After 24 mon...

BACKGROUND Studies have supported the correlation between mean platelet volume and COPD. However, there are limited data on the relationship between COPD exacerbation and mean platelet volume. We aimed to evaluate the mean platelet volume trend in patients with COPD exacerbation. METHODS A total of 81 subjects, 62 men and 19 women, who were admitted to the hospital because of exacerbation of ...

BACKGROUND Debate exists regarding which endpoints most sensitively reflect day-to-day variation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) symptoms and are most useful in clinical practice to predict COPD exacerbations. We hypothesized that short-acting β2-agonist (SABA) reliever use would predict short- and long-term exacerbation risk in COPD patients. METHODS We performed a retrospect...

BACKGROUND One of the characteristics of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the tendency to develop acute exacerbation, defined by the presence of different clinical findings as worsening dyspnea, increase in sputum purulence and volume. This study was designed to verify if definition of acute COPD exacerbation is applicable to patients who underwent pulmonary surgery, and if it ha...

BACKGROUND Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most frequent causes of limited mobility and diminished quality of life. Pain is the main symptom that drives individuals with knee OA to seek medical care and a recognized antecedent to disability and eventually joint replacement. Evidence shows that patients with symptomatic OA experience fluctuations in pain severity. Mechanical insults to th...

BACKGROUND A Seasonal Asthma Exacerbation Predictive Index (saEPI) was previously reported based on 2 prior National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Inner City Asthma Consortium trials. OBJECTIVE This study sought to validate the saEPI in a separate trial designed to prevent fall exacerbations with omalizumab therapy. METHODS The saEPI and its components were analyzed to charac...