Active clinical trials for "Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive"

Limb muscle dysfunction, characterized by loss of capillaries, is amongst the most troublesome systemic consequences of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) leading to poor functional status and premature mortality. One prevailing hypothesis stipulates that modification in the expression of miR-204 leads to change the regulation of angiogenesis in vastus lateralis of patients with COPD when compared to controls.

The primary aim of this study is to investigate the incidence of falling in a cohort of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) referred to a pulmonary rehabilitation program and to verify the risk factors. The secondary aim is to verify whether available balance assessment tools are feasible in clinical practice and which tools and values can best predict falls in people with COPD.

A single center case-control study with 100 COPD patients will be organized to compare patients with and without bronchiectasis with regard to the presence of Aspergillus in sputum samples, Aspergillus sensitization and vitamin D. Induced sputum samples will be optimized for culture, Aspergillus galatomannan analysis and RT-PCR. This study is part of a larger project in which we assume that chronic respiratory infection by Aspergillus fumigatus and the accompanying immune response play an important role in the development of bronchiectasis in COPD. We suspect that this mechanism is controlled by vitamin D and it fails by suppression of the vitamin D receptor by Aspergillus fumigatus. The present study is designed by the Laboratory of pneumology and will be conducted in collaboration with the Laboratory of clinical bacteriology and mycology of the Catholic University of Leuven.

To estimate prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in cardiac surgery population and establish links between COPD status, as assessed through pulmonary functional tests, and 2-year mortality

Lung transplantation is a well established method for surgical therapy for patients with end stage pulmonary disease. The investigators seek to determine to which extent the pulmonary vascular barrier gets harmed during lung transplantation and whether pulmonary edema after reperfusion can be monitored with measurement of extravascular lung water index (ELWI). Additionally the investigaors are going to evaluate the correlation between ELWI and shedding of the endothelial glycocalyx. The study is designed as a prospective observational cohort study.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the demographic characteristics, clinical features, diagnoses and treatments of AECOPD hospitalized patients in China, and disease prognosis and its economic burden.

To study activity in the reward-circuitry of the brain in patients suffering from cachexia induced by cancer or chronic disease.

Limb muscle dysfunction, characterized by atrophy and weakness, is amongst the most troublesome systemic consequences of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) leading to poor functional status and premature mortality. One prevailing hypothesis stipulates that the deterioration in muscle structure and function during COPD results from a spillover of inflammatory mediators from the lungs to the systemic circulation and then to the muscles.

The purpose of this study was to determine occurrence of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) in tracheostomized patients with COPD discharged in invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) compared to patients with CPOPD discharged with tracheostomy but in non invasive mechanical ventilation (NIMV).

Trouble breathing (dyspnea) is a nonspecific symptom associated with many diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (lung disorder in which the flow of air to the lungs is blocked), asthma, pneumonia, pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs), congestive heart failure (fluid build-up in the lungs because the heart is not pumping normally) and pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs). The purpose of this study is to test two blood markers called ST2 and IL-33. Blood markers are proteins or other compounds in your blood that physicians use to diagnose different diseases and to determine what the course of an illness will be. In preliminary research studies, ST2 and IL-33 have been elevated in patients with a wide variety of diseases where the lungs are the primary organs involved. This research study will further investigate the ability of ST2 and IL-33 to predict the severity of disease and the possible use of ST2 and IL-33 in the diagnosis of various lung diseases.