Active clinical trials for "Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive"

Rationale Although the majority of asthma patients can be effectively treated with currently available medications, a substantial subset remains severe, causing a considerable proportion of resource expenditure. Severe asthma is now widely accepted to be a heterogeneous syndrome consisting of multiple phenotypes identified by specific biomarkers and targeted by tailored biological therapies. However, much remains unclear regarding the best approaches to manage these patients, or concerning the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying the disease. Small airways (SA) are defined as those airways with an internal diameter <2 mm. In patients affected by asthma, it has been reported that SA are the predominant site of airflow resistance. Peripheral airways are thickened in asthma due to chronic inflammation in the epithelium, submucosa and muscle area. It has been suggested that the outer wall is more inflamed than the inner wall, with a higher number of lymphocytes, eosinophils, and neutrophils associated to an increased mRNA expression of interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-5 and eotaxin. Moreover, it is well documented that SA inflammation and dysfunction contributes significantly to the clinical impact of asthma and that 50-60% of asthmatics have a SA involvement across all disease severities. An important question is whether SA disease in asthma is variable among distinct asthma phenotypes and whether it occurs in all patients. Cluster analyses have been recently used to identify specific asthma phenotypes, but markers of SA function have not been investigated. However, evidence is accumulating to support the concept that SA dysfunction and inflammation may contribute to distinct asthma phenotypes. Recent findings indicate that SA are significantly affected in severe asthma and that their involvement is associated with worse disease outcomes. It has been reported that patients with asthma and a history of frequent exacerbations per year had a significant SA involvement Furthermore, peripheral airways significantly contribute not only to the level of asthma control, but also to patients' quality of life and perception of symptoms. At last more thickened SA and higher numbers of eosinophils are detectable in subjects with fatal asthma. The assessment of SA represents a big challenge and requires qualified expertise and sophisticated techniques including body plethysmography, single and multiple breath nitrogen washout, impulse oscillometry (IOS), fraction exhaled NO at multiflow, sputum induction and high-resolution chest CT (HRCT). Such procedures can either provide functional information on the degree/extent of ventilation heterogeneity and air trapping or facilitate the understanding of the inflammatory and remodeling processes. These measures are not usually part of the evaluation of asthmatic patients and in the monitoring of the effects of drugs recommended for severe asthma. Mepolizumab represents an innovative weapon for the treatment of severe eosinophilic asthma. In most of these patients the drug controls inflammation, improves lung function, ameliorates clinical symptoms, reduces exacerbations and has a marked steroid-sparing effect. However, there is still a significant proportion of non-responders and a lack of validated predictive biomarkers in such subpopulation. In regard to this, very limited findings are available about the effect of mepolizumab on SA. At the best of our knowledge, the only paper available in literature, addressing the topic, is the study of Farah and co-workers. The authors found that an early improvement in SA function was associated with better asthma control and represented a significant contributor to the therapeutic response. However, the study was conducted in a limited cohort of patients, assessing SA only through multi breath nitrogen washout, and not considering the relationship between SA disease and levels of peripheral/sputum eosinophils. Also, a study was recently initiated at the Hopitaux de Paris to evaluate airway remodelling during mepolizumab treatment (REMOMEPO, NCT03797404). A better definition of severe asthma phenotypes and endotypes, as well as the identification of novel disease targets and biomarkers to predict treatment response and monitor efficacy and safety of biological drugs over time, would favor a Precision Medicine approach translating in both improved disease management and reduced healthcare costs and social burdens. This is considered a crucial unmet need and further research in the field is strongly recommended by international guidelines, respiratory scientific societies, healthcare systems and regulatory boards.

Aging of the population is dramatically increasing the number of hospitalized patients, with the consequent challenges of limited medical personnel and resources in hospitals. Wireless technologies that create highly connected healthcare environments are developed to help hospitals address these issues, once these technologies are perfectly integrated in the hospital environment with respect to IT infrastructure for big data storage. Such devices have proven remarkable efficiencies in monitoring patients with high patient safety, data accuracy and security, which are essential to provide high quality patient care, reduce health-related costs and optimize the management of high numbers of patients. Cough is the most common condition that results in a visit to the physician. Often coughs are benign, but sometimes can be the sign of exacerbations of a chronic respiratory disease. Exacerbations are defined in the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) document "as an acute event characterised by a worsening of the patient's respiratory symptoms that is beyond normal day-to-day variations and leads to a change in medication". It is assumed that, if coughs were remotely monitored, hospitals might be unburdened, patients would be empowered to self-manage their health, and that prevention of serious respiratory diseases might be facilitated, thus improving health outcomes. Unfortunately, remote monitoring for cough that rely on self-reporting is impractical, as patients do not record data very reliably. On the contrary, a microphone on the bedside table connected to a medical data analysis platform might monitor patients' cough exacerbations at night and alert the medical staff immediately.

According to the WISDOM study, withdraw of inhaled steroids has no effect on the acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but the lung function of patients with COPD is significantly reclined. In the subgroup analysis of this study, patients with COPD were found to have continued to use inhaled steroids in patients with eosinophilic leukocytes greater than 400 cells/ul or whom has more than two episodes of exacerbation per year. However, in SUNSET study, it was pointed out that withdraw of inhaled steroids had no effect on lung function in patients with COPD, but it was also found that in patients with COPD, eosinophilic leukocytes in the blood were greater than 300 cells/ul, have a better therapeutic response in steroid inhalation. In addition, some studies have shown that in patients with COPD, a decline in lung function after discontinuation of inhaled steroids can make the patient's clinical symptoms worse and increase the risk of acute exacerbations. However, in other comprehensive analytical studies, there are different outcomes. There is no statistically significant difference in the risk of acute exacerbation in patients with COPD after discontinuation of inhaled steroids. In past studies, it was noted that inhaled steroids cause an increased risk of pneumonia in patients with COPD. However, in these studies, the diagnosis of pneumonia was only from the clinician's suspicion without clear symptom assessment, laboratory examination, microbiological evidence or imaging assessment. Therefore, further research is needed to assess whether patients are suitable for the reduction of inhaled steroids and the impact of COPD in clinical treatment.

CareWell will enable the delivery of integrated healthcare to frail elderly patients in a pilot setting through comprehensive multidisciplinary integrated care programmes where the role of ICTs can foster the coordination and patient centered delivery care. Carewell will focus in particular complex, multi-morbid elderly patients, who the patients most in need of health and social care resources (35% the total cost of Health Care System) and more complex interventions due to their frailty and comorbidities (health and social care coordination, monitoring, self-management of the patient and informal care giver). ICT platforms and communication channels that allow sharing information between healthcare and social care professionals involved in the delivery care of these patients, facilitating their coordination, increasing their resoluteness and avoiding duplicities when tackling patients´ diagnostic, therapeutic, rehabilitation or monitoring needs. Additionally, ICT-based platforms can improve the adherence to treatment, enhance self-care and increase patient awareness about their health status , as well as, improve the empowerment of informal caregivers, who usually take care of these patients. According to this, it is hypothesized that the benefit of integrated care programmes based on (1) integrated care coordination and (2) patient empowerment & home support pathways supported by ICT is greater and essential for these patients. Care pathways will cut across organisational boundaries and will activate the most appropriate resources across the entire spectrum of healthcare and social care services available for both scheduled and emergency care. CareWell aims to scale up the services in pioneer regions and share their approach, learning from and supporting the other pilot sites which are at different levels of maturity in respect to designing, developing and implementing new ways of providing integrated care services.

A prospective randomized controlled trial studying the ordering of palliative care consultations in the emergency department (Ig) versus later palliative care consultations in the hospital--ICU or hospital ward(Cg). Patients will be randomly allocated to Ig or Cg with a 1:1 ratio.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a progressive disease that is characterized by loss of lung function, leading to breathlessness, poor quality of life, loss in productivity, and increased mortality. The World Health Organization estimates that COPD will be the third leading cause of death worldwide by 2020, accounting for more than 7 million deaths annually. COPD patients frequently experience 'lung attacks', during which breathlessness, coughing, and sputum production dramatically increase, leading to urgent office visits, emergency admissions and hospitalizations. Lung attacks reduce patient quality of life and cost the Canadian health care system nearly $4 billion dollars each year in direct and indirect costs. Lung attacks can be effectively managed if they are identified and treated early, but symptoms of a lung attack often overlap with those of other common conditions such as heart failure, pneumonia and even influenza. Because there are no tests that can separate lung attacks from these conditions, doctors struggle to accurately diagnose lung attacks at an early stage when drugs are most effective. This can lead to a delayed or even incorrect diagnosis and inappropriate treatment. This research will address this critical need. Our goal is to improve COPD patient care by developing new blood tests that will help identify patients who are in the early stages of a lung attack. Doctors will be able to use these tests to treat lung attacks at earlier stages than is currently possible. These blood tests will enable doctors to personalize management of COPD to meet the needs of the individual patient. Hypothesis: New biomarker blood tests can be used to better identify and manage patients with COPD.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease has become a serious global health care and public health problems due to its high prevalence, high morbidity and heavy economic burden. Acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is one of the most important causes of death in patients with COPD. Systemic corticosteroids therapy is recommended in COPD exacerbations. In clinical practice for the treatment of acute exacerbation of COPD， antibiotic application is still controversial. Evidence from current guideline is based on strict criteria from randomized controlled trials, thus the given condition is simplified. Patients meet the criteria account for the minority in the real world. Therefore, it is still not clear whether most patients benefit from the recommended treatment. In our design, hospitalized patients with acute exacerbation of COPD will be enrolled, with their treatment, arterial hypoxemia, recovery time and length of hospitalization being observed. The main purpose is to evaluate the benefit effect of current recommended treatment of acute exacerbation of COPD in the real world.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major health problem whose prevalence is increasing rapidly. The gradual decrease in exercise tolerance is one of the usual consequences of COPD that affects the functional independence and quality of life of patients. In COPD patients, breathlessness and muscle fatigue are the main symptoms limiting exercise. Recent studies have shown that most of the physiological mechanisms of psychological factors such as emotions, motivation, memory, personality, expectations, or prior experience can greatly influence and modulate the perception of breathlessness. It has been proposed that the attentional distraction (visual or auditory) during exercise may be associated with a decrease in anxiety and shortness of breath and could improve exercise tolerance in COPD. We therefore propose to study the impact of attentional strategies of distraction on the perception of dyspnea and walking tolerance in patients with COPD. The research hypotheses are: i) Compared with exposure to a strategy of negative attentional distraction during exercise, exposure to a strategy of positive attentional distraction will improve walking exercise tolerance in patients with COPD; ii) For a given level of effort, sensory perception and emotional perception will be enhanced by exposure to a strategy of positive attentional distraction. Ten subjects with moderate to severe COPD will be recruited at the Research Center of the Institut Universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Québec (CRIUCPQ). During an assessment visit, we will measure complete pulmonary function, body composition and maximal functional capacity during a maximal incremental test work performed on a treadmill. During two subsequent experimental visits, and after spirometry control, participants will perform a walking test performed on a treadmill at an intensity corresponding to 75% of maximum effort during maximal incremental test. The test will be carried out in combination with a strategy of either positive attentional distraction, neutral attentional distraction or negative attentional distraction . The order of the condition will be randomized.

COPD patients will be recruited and assigned into one of each group: 1) Control group or 2) Yoga group. In Yoga groups, subjected will be asked to participate in Modified Dantien Yoga training for 12 weeks (3 times/week, 60 min/time). The subjects will be evaluated their pulmonary function, functional fitness performance, dyspnea score, and quality of life at baseline and after 12 wk training.

COPD is ranked number 3 by the WHO list of important diseases worldwide and is the only disease with increasing mortality. The pathogenesis of cigarette smoke-induced COPD is obscure, therefore more insight is needed to design effective anti-inflammatory agents. Recently it has become clear that cigarette smoke-induced inflammation is not only present in the lungs but also in the blood, and that this systemic inflammation has important consequences for the clinical expression of COPD. The investigators hypothesize that healthy individuals who are susceptible to cigarette smoking demonstrate a higher and aberrant systemic inflammatory response to cigarette smoke. This susceptibility is caused by heterogeneous factors and is associated with various polymorphic genes that interact with each other and with the environment. Objective: To study systemic inflammation in individuals who are or are not susceptible to develop COPD. To characterize the switch to chronicity of the systemic inflmmatory response in COPD To determine whether the type and severity of the systemic inflammation contributes to the clinical outcome of COPD To compare between subjects who are or are not susceptible to develop COPD in peripheral blood, the corticosteroid responsiveness in vitro, and to unravel underlying mechanisms. To study the role of candidate genes that may play a role in the development of fixed airway obstruction, and to identify clues for patient's responsiveness to specific drugs To develop new biological and clinical markers for the early diagnosis and monitoring of COPD To define possible mediators involved in the early induction of COPD in susceptible smokers, and to define new drug targets