Active clinical trials for "Lung Diseases"

Background: in various pediatric pulmonary diseases such as asthma, cystic fibrosis or bronchopulmonary dysplasia an increased inflammation is present. Measuring this inflammation is often hardly possible and requires invasive techniques such as bronchoscopy. With the use of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) or exhaled breath (EB) analysis it is possible to measure the inflammation in an non-invasive way. However, there is a great need to further standardise these measurements and to identify possible confounding factors.

There is increasing evidence in the literature that COPD should not be considered as a localised pulmonary disorder but as a systemic disease involving pathology in several extra pulmonary tissues. Well characterized systemic features are a chronic low grade systemic inflammation, altered body composition and a skeletal muscle fibre type shift. There are indications that an absolute or relative increase of fat mass puts COPD patients at increased risk for cardiovascular pathology while muscle atrophy is associated with a high prevalence of osteoporosis and with impaired physical function. The origin of systemic inflammation is poorly understood. Both endogenous and exogenous risk factors contribute to systemic inflammation and extra-pulmonary manifestations of COPD. Overall objective of study 3: To compare the pattern and severity of the systemic inflammatory profile in relation to skeletal muscle weakness and cardiovascular risk profile in COPD patients with mild to moderate disease compared to non-susceptible smokers. Specific objectives: To study the relative contribution of pulmonary and extra pulmonary factors on exercise capacity, skeletal muscle function and health status To relate diet, physical activity and cardiovascular risk factors to body composition, skeletal muscle function and exercise capacity status To study the influence of the emphysema phenotype on extra pulmonary pathology in COPD To study muscle fibre type size and composition and to relate muscle oxidative phenotype with insulin sensitivity, inflammation (local and systemic) and molecular signatures of oxidative energy and protein metabolism. Study design: Cross-sectional study. Healthy smoking subjects and COPD patients will undergo extensive clinical, metabolic and inflammatory assessment at the university clinics in Groningen, Maastricht and CIRO Horn. Study population: Totally 60 subjects will be included 30 healthy subjects who after 20 pack years smoking have no signs of COPD (age 40-75 years) 30 COPD patients with GOLD stage II (age 40-75 years)

There is a rare condition causing scarring of the lungs termed interstitial lung disease. This comprises a group of conditions which can be divided into separate diseases. The aim of this study is compare a group of patients (the cases) with 2 types of this disease (fibrotic non-specific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF)) with patients without the disease. The study will look at the 2 groups and their exposures to factors such as medications, smoking, previous jobs, previous medical problems and specifically heart disease and any operations or procedures involving the heart. There have been previous studies showing a link between heart disease and scarring of the lungs. This study will look at whether this association is stronger in one or the other type of lung scarring diseases.

Skeletal muscle is composed of two fibre types which are intertwined. Skeletal muscle weakness, particularly of the walking muscles, is an important complication of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) but so far the investigators do not know what mechanisms drive the process. All existing studies have investigated signalling pathways in the whole muscle so they have been forced to consider type I and type II fibres together. It is possible that disease selectively affects one fibre type, most likely type I fibres which are in fact lost in COPD patients. For this reason mechanisms of disease may have been overlooked by current studies. The applicants have acquired the technology which allows type I and type II fibres in a muscle specimen to be split (by laser capture microdissection) and so signalling pathways can be assessed separately in type II and type I fibres which is what this proposal sets out to do. The proposal therefore aims to capture well characterised clinical data from 60 COPD patients and 20 age matched controls, from whom a biopsy of the main walking muscle, the quadriceps, will be taken. In the samples the investigators will assess at a fibre specific level inflammatory signalling. Surplus material will be retained for subsequent fibre specific analysis.

A breathing condition known as "chronic obstructive pulmonary disease" (COPD) caused by cigarette smoking is a major health problem. The way by which smoking leads to lung disease is uncertain. Recent research done in animals provides a description of specific changes (that is a reduction) in these immune cell types as a result of cigarette smoke exposure. The study you have been asked to participate in is a pilot study to see if similar changes occur in humans who smoke. The purpose of this study is to evaluate this new method of testing blood in 3 groups of 10 people: normal non-smoking subjects, subjects who smoke with no history of lung disease and subjects who smoke and have smoking related COPD.

This prospective cohort study will investigate whether progression of the interstitial lung diseases is related to specific clinical endpoints and their changes over time. Longitudinal data of patients will be compared to an age-matched control group during a follow-up of at least two years.

The purpose of the study is to identify the genetic closeness of NTM derived from patients living together and from their surrounding environment and to trace the temporal relationship between them.

The purpose of this study is to analysis the volatile organic gases(VOCs) in exhaled breath of pulmonary lesion patients and healthy controls, in order to find the difference of composition and concentration among groups.

Pulmonary function testing is the most widely used tool for the diagnosis, severity assessment, management, risk factor categorization and follow-up of individuals with chronic lung disease. Africa has a high burden of infectious respiratory diseases which include tuberculosis, asthma and human immunodeficiency virus-related lung disease. Coupled with this is an increasing burden of non-communicable respiratory diseases; which include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, bronchiectasis and asthma. A proviso to the use of lung function testing is the determination of "normal" values; which are determined for age, gender, height and ethnicity for the relevant population. It is well recognised that the comparison of an individual patients' results to an ethnically inappropriate population may lead to the under or -over diagnosis of disease, inappropriate treatments and result in increased burden on individuals, their families and the healthcare system. The investigators therefore propose to conduct a prospective well-designed study to include a representative sample of both adults and children (4000); to verify the validity of the retrospective pilot data, in a South African population.

Interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) are a heterogeneous group of disorders, which encompass a wide range of conditions. In some patients with fibrosing ILDs, a progressive phenotype similar to that observed in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) may develop during the course of the disease (PF-ILD), including patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc)-related ILD. The aim of the study is to estimate the incidence and prevalence and to describe the characteristics of patients diagnosed with non-IPF PF-ILD and SSc-ILD, to describe the natural course of disease, and to explore the correlation between mortality and Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) of the patients with non-IPF PF-ILD. This study will be based on two data sources: the French national medico administrative database (SNDS) and the ILD cohort from the National French center for rare pulmonary diseases in Lyon, France.