Active clinical trials for "Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive"

This is a descriptive observational open non-comparative study of the safety and efficacy of tiotropium inhalation capsule given at 18mcg once a day for 30 days among Korean patients with COPD. At Visit 1, patients who are diagnosed as COPD will be prescribed tiotropium inhalation capsule at 18mcg once daily (at the same time). Patients' FEV1 will be assessed before start of treatment (Visit 1) and at the end of the 30 day treatment period (Visit 2). Occurrence of adverse events will also be asked from the patient at the end of the 30 day treatment period. Patients will be informed by the attending physicians to immediately report the occurrence of serious adverse events.

This is a clinical study, with no investigational product, to characterise the inhalation profiles of healthy volunteers, volunteers with mild, moderate and severe Asthma and volunteers with mild, moderate and severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), through the novel dry powder inhaler.

Preference study: Genuair vs HandiHaler inhalers in COPD patients.

Respiratory virus infections are a common cause of COPD exacerbations and antiviral therapies have potential as treatments for exacerbations. However it is likely that treating patients when they present with an exacerbation with antiviral drugs will be too late to be effective and earlier treatment at the time of the initial upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) will be required. The incidence of exacerbations following URTIs in COPD patients, and whether there are host factors and biomarkers that can identify the risk of this, is unknown. The aims of this study are to establish the proportion of viral URTIs that progress to an acute exacerbation in COPD patients and identify clinical, viral and biological markers that predict risk of an exacerbation following an URTI. In addition we will determine the frequency of, and risk factors for, bacterial infection following viral URTIs in COPD patients. This data will permit development of a model combining baseline patient characteristics, clinical measurements and biomarkers to predict exacerbation risk following viral URTI in COPD patients. The results will open the way for trials of antiviral therapy in COPD exacerbations and targeting of treatment to high risk patients.

The purpose of the study is to inform decision-makers of the best strategies to implement advanced care planning (ACP). An advanced care plan (ACP) is a verbal or written instruction describing what kind of care an individual would want (or not want)if they are no longer able speak for themselves to make health care decisions.

Recently integrated in clinical practice, the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) classification states that a mild (stage I) chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is present, in a smoker, when the postbronchodilator forced expired volume in 1 second (FEV1) to forced vital capacity (FVC) ratio is < 0.7. A major change that was introduced by the GOLD classification system was that COPD could be diagnosed despite an FEV1 that is within normal predicted values (above 80% predicted). Because it suggests diagnosing and detecting COPD earlier than done until very recently in medical practice, the GOLD standards bring in a new reality to clinicians. In fact, this novel COPD classification comes with new research challenges because the functional impacts and systemic consequences related to COPD are mostly documented in patients with moderate to severe stages with little information specifically in GOLD stage I COPD. This information is important if the investigators are to convince physicians that GOLD stage I COPD needs to be diagnosed and eventually treated. The investigators aimed to characterize GOLD stage I COPD patients according to activity-related dyspnea. More specifically, our objectives were to compare: i) baseline pulmonary function ii) exercise capacity iii) quadriceps muscle function iv) levels of physical activity in daily life between symptomatic (Sx) GOLD stage I COPD patients, asymptomatic (ASx) GOLD stage I COPD patients and healthy control subjects (CTRL). The investigators reasoned that exercise tolerance and physical activity levels would be decreased in Sx GOLD stage I COPD patients as it would be similar between ASx GOLD stage I COPD patients and CTRL.

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that have frequent chest infections are the patients most likely to become worse over time. Why these people are more susceptible to chest infections is not known. One reason might be that the white cells in their lungs called macrophages do not work properly. Normally, these cells remove all the debris inhaled into the lung. This can also include bacteria. In patients with COPD, these macrophages are not able to remove these particles. The research question addresses why this happens

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a statistical association between the changes from baseline in the levels of two cytokines interleukin (IL)-17A and IL-6 in the sputum of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and the severity of acute exacerbations of COPD (AE-COPD). These sputum cytokine levels are taken as measures of the adaptive immune response (IL-17A) and the innate immune response (IL-6), respectively. Sputum will be collected either spontaneously or will be obtained by induction; cytokine levels will be measured by ELISA. The primary analysis, comparisons of sputum cytokine levels between clinical states, will be done using random effects modeling.

Cigarette smoking is the major risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, commonly known as chronic bronchitis and emphysema). Despite this clear link, only 15-20% of smokers develop COPD suggesting that genetic factors affect the lung's susceptibility to the stress of cigarette smoke. The cells lining the airways (epithelium) and cells that help defend the lung (alveolar macrophages) of smokers develop gene expression changes that are different from that of nonsmokers. In the investigators' previous studies they have demonstrated that there are greater than 200 genes that are responsive to cigarette smoke in these cells. But the investigators do not know whether the gene expression is static or changes as a function of time. Genes that show significant changes over time may be relevant to the progression of the disease. Even though quitting smoking reduces the rate at which the lungs decline, many-smokers still go on to develop COPD. This study will provide insights into the natural history of smoking-related gene expression of the lung cells in health and disease.

This study is aimed to determine factors leading to obstructive granulation tissue formation after placement of Self-Expandable Metallic Stent (SEMS) in patients with benign tracheal diseases.