Active clinical trials for "Lung Diseases"

Airway macrophage impairment is a central feature in the immunopathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, regardless of smoking status.

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.

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the sensitivity of a new oxygen enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (OE-MRI) method in detecting changes in the lungs of patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) following treatment with either Oxis Turbuhaler or Symbicort Turbuhaler.

Preference study: Genuair vs HandiHaler inhalers in COPD patients.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a condition that is characterized by airway obstruction due to inflammation. Levels of inflammatory proteins may be linked to when and to what extent COPD develops. This study will use data collected during the Tucson Epidemiological Study of Airway Obstructive Disease (TESAOD) and its 33-year follow-up to determine the relationship between inflammatory protein expression and COPD.

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.

This research is being done to study mechanisms of progression of COPD and to develop treatments for it. The investigators are doing the present study to identify people age 40 and older with mild to moderate COPD who will qualify for such studies to include in a database. The study will include establishing a screening evaluation or characterization of the following two studies: Emphysema Progression in COPD- Losartan's Effects on Airway Parameters - NA_00009980 Sleep-Related Physiology and Inflammation in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - NA_00001771

COPD patients often have a wide range of physical (e.g., dyspnea, fatigue, pain) and psychological (e.g., depression, anxiety) symptoms and various other debilitating conditions that cause considerable suffering for the individual. Unfortunately, many of the symptoms and health problems in patients with COPD are unrecognized and untreated. Due to the irreversible nature of COPD, the aim is not to cure the disease, but to reduce symptoms and improve quality of life. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to investigate the existence and nature of symptom clusters over time in patients with COPD and their effects on patient outcomes. Since this study aims to identify possible new subgroups of patients with COPD defined by the clustering of certain symptoms, the study also aims to investigate the relationship between the clinical presentation and certain immunologic and genetic factors.

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.