Active clinical trials for "Lung Diseases"

The proposed research study is a cross-sectional study enrolling young children with sickle cell disease between 5 and 12 years of age. They will be screened as outpatients for consent to perform pulmonary function testing (PFT) and echocardiography. In addition, the degree of bronchodilator response will be assessed at each session. To estimate presence of pulmonary hypertension, echocardiography will be performed at the time of PFT measures. Study Design: Enroll children aged 5 to 12 years of age with sickle cell disease (HbSS, HbSC, HbS beta plus thalassemia, HbS beta zero thalassemia, and HbS OArab) who are established patients within the Duke Pediatric Sickle Cell Clinic. Perform a chart review of all enrolled subjects to obtain specific details regarding birth history, nutritional status (weight, height), family history, sickle cell genotype, parental smoking history, recent laboratory parameters, parental smoking history, any concurrent conditions (atopy, asthma, airway anomaly), history of sickle cell complications and prescribed medications. Perform spirometry and plethysmography with the administration of albuterol. Before or after completion the PFT session, the patient will have echocardiography in the PFT lab area Using medical record information, determine number of hospitalizations for any pulmonary symptoms indicative of acute chest syndrome (ACS) (dyspnea, fever, wheezing, hypoxia, cough, chest pain). In addition, we will track any respiratory or cardiac symptoms or therapies for each subject 6 years after enrollment up to age 18 years using the registry. As standard of care, refer any child identified as having lung disease or pulmonary hypertension to a pediatric pulmonologist and/or cardiologist for monitoring, treatment and ongoing care.

The whole body vibration offers better treatment adherence among the elderly, minimizing effort and additional stress to the cardiovascular system and skeletal muscles compared to conventional exercise programs. Hypothesis: Patients with COPD undergoing a training program on the whole body vibration show better performance in the 6MWT and improvement in muscle strength.

On the basis of 2 cases of immunologically-induced lung disease in 2 saxophonists, the investigators supposed that wind reed instruments could be contaminated with molds. The investigators led a study on 40 musicians playing a wind reed instrument to analyze instruments' fungal contamination and its immunological and clinical consequences for musicians.

The aim of this study is to investigate the six-minute-walking-distance of COPD-patients with breathing oxygen in comparison to breathing normal air. Patients, who increase their walking-distance about more than 15% or 35m only because of breathing oxygen, are so-called "Oxygen Responders." The study is aimed to find attributes of Oxygen Responder and to investigate, if a patient can change the "respond" with higher performance and endurance.

The purpose of this study is to determine if a program of self management and case management reduces hospitalizations and urgent care visits for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of two major, widely used technologies, radionuclear imaging (ventilation-perfusion scanning) and pulmonary angiography, for the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.

This is a study to provide an in-depth validation of the 1-minute sit-to-stand test as a measure of exercise capacity in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Patients will perform the 1-minute sit-to-stand test and other validated exercise tests and questionnaires.

All measurements are performed on two consecutive days at the beginning of a pulmonary rehabilitation program in a randomized cross-over study design. On the first day, each patient is randomly assigned to perform either the 2 minute walk test or the 6 Minute walk test. On the second day each patient performs the test that was not performed on the first day. All walk tests are performed by the same investigator on the same track and time of day, following the 2002 guidelines of the American Thoracic Society. Patients wear a mobile pulse oximeter that continuously records heart rate and oxygen saturation during testing. Baseline values of oxygen saturation, heart rate and ratings of perceived exertion on the modified Borg scale (0 to 10) for dyspnea and leg fatigue are recorded at rest after 10 minutes of sitting.

It has been shown, that in patients with very severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) the additional use of non-invasive ventilation during pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) may enhance the benefits of PR. It is assumed that the non-invasive ventilation techniques provides a better recovery of the respiratory pump during the night. If non-invasive ventilation also decreases the metabolic demands during night is unknown and is aim of this study. During a 3 week inpatient pulmonary rehabilitation program a total of 85 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease stage IV will be recruited for this study. There will be a 4:1 distribution into 2 groups. 68 patients with an indication for the use of a non-invasive ventilation will be involved in the intervention group where non-invasive ventilation will be initialized. 17 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease stage IV without an indication for the use of non-invasive ventilation will be involved in a control group to detect the changes in nocturnal energy expenditure produced by pulmonary rehabilitation alone. All outcome measurements will be performed during day 1-3 and will be repeated after 12 days (with or without non-invasive ventilation) at day 15-17 of the pulmonary rehabilitation program. A sub-trial of this study is to validate night movement accuracy of the Dynaport activity monitor with the observations made by a night-vision camera in the sleep lab. This will be performed in study participants as well as in healthy volunteers.

To evaluate the magnitude of the humoral immune responses to quadrivalent vs trivalent influenza vaccines in adults between the age of 50 and 64 years with a prior diagnosis of GOLD Stage C and D COPD vs. those patients without COPD.