Active clinical trials for "Lung Diseases, Obstructive"

Asthma and COPD are characterized by airway narrowing. The most potent, physiological mechanism leading to bronchodilation is taking a deep inspiration. This protects healthy subjects against bronchoconstrictive stimuli, and reverses pre-existing bronchoconstriction. However, the deep breath-induced bronchoprotection and -bronchodilation is impaired in asthma. We questioned whether this is specific for asthma (in comparison to COPD), and whether this is associated with bronchial inflammation and -remodelling. The study is a two-groups comparison, of physiological and pathological disease markers, obtained by methacholine challenges, monitoring airways resistance, and by taking bronchial biopsies.

Hospitalization is a traumatic event for the patient and his family at any age nevertheless in the older age. One of its consequences is the difficulty to resume previous activity of daily living especially in older (over 75 years) patients. Sub acute completes the acute phase of the hospitalization and its main purpose is to improve the patient's functional status and quality of life. There are not enough clinical trails to proof this assumption. The purpose of our study is to compare the outcome of acute and sub-acute hospitalization programs by a randomized controlled prospective intervention study. Outcome measures will comprise activity of daily living, functional status, re-hospitalization and utilization of medical services following the hospitalization.Study hypothesis is that sub-acute hospitalization will improve outcomes and will cost less.

Patients admitted to the hospital with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are evaluated with regard to early follow-up by a specialized nurse in the home after discharge.

Although some important progresses were made in the field of the meridian research, no breakthroughs have been achieved. Besides,there are some problems in meridian researches. The majority of the existing studies involve lots of subjective assessments for meridian phenomena. In addition, few studies have investigated the site specificity between two specific meridians.Therefore, this study is designed to detect the microcirculatory characteristics of meridian phenomena by using an objective assessment tool and investigate the site specificity for the meridian-visceral association and surface-surface association between two specific meridians.

Exacerbations, in particular during chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) infection, are very important in the prognosis of patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis (BE). In Cystic Fibrosis patients, PA biofilms are associated with chronic respiratory infections and are the primary cause of their increased morbidity and mortality. However, the presence and role in exacerbations of PA biofilms, microbiome dysbiosis and inflammatory biomarkers has not been studied in depth in BE patients. Our aim is to determine the association between PA chronic infection and its biofilms with the number of exacerbations in the next year (primary outcome), time until next exacerbation, quality of life, FEV1 and inflammatory biomarkers (secondary outcomes) in BE patients with or without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The investigators will include and follow up during 12 months post study inclusion, 48 patients with BE and 48 with BE-COPD, with a positive sputum culture of PA. During stability and follow up (and in each exacerbation) The investigators will collect 4 sputum, 4 serum samples, perform spirometry, and quality of life tests every three months. For the biomarkers subproject, 4 additional serum samples will be collected at: exacerbation, 3-5 days after treatment, at 30 days and three months post-exacerbation. Biomarkers will be measured by commercial kits and Luminex. The investigators will quantify PA colony forming units (CFU)/mL, their resistance pattern, their mutation frequency and isolate mucoid and non-mucoid colonies. In each sputum, the investigators will analyze by Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM) and Fluorescent in situ Hybridizatrion (FISH) PA biofilms, their size, bacterial density and their in situ growth rate. Specific serum antibodies against PA will be determined through Crossed Immunoelectrophoresis. In addition, the investigators will indentify potential respiratory microbiome and gene expression patterns predictive for exacerbations, or with a protective role against chronic PA infection, as well as their association with biofilms. Microbiome analysis will be performed through the Illumina Miseq platform. Finally, the investigators will explore the antimicrobial activity of novel combinations of antibiotics against PA, both in in vitro planktonic cultures and in a biofilm model, and will include testing of antibiotic-containing alginate nanoparticles.

This prospective, single centre, 8 weeks, open-label study is designed to evaluate in real-life the effect of triple Beclometasone/Formoterol/Glycopyrronium (BDP/F/G) therapy on cough efficacy, assessed by cough peak flow (CPF), after 8 weeks' treatment in patients with moderate to severe COPD. The study's hypothesis is that in symptomatic moderate to severe COPD patients the administration of fixed dose combination BDP/F/G, by reducing lung hyperinflation (LH) and targeting small airways, may accordingly improve the cough efficacy. The increase in cough efficacy might in turn positively influence the quality of life of patients and underlie the prevention of acute exacerbations of COPD.

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.