BMC Pulmonary Medicine

INTRODUCTION: Histoplasmosis is a fungal disease caused by Histoplasma capsulatum. Histoplasma capsulatum var capsulatum is found in Martinique. Cluster cases following working in deserted house, have been described in Martinique. Cases of acute pulmonary histoplasmosis have been described in immunosuppressed individuals, or in case of substantial exposure to reservoirs of Histoplasma capsulatum; however, cases of acute histoplasmosis are rare in immunocompetent individuals. CASES SERIES: We report a series of 4 cases of sporadic acute pulmonary histoplasmosis in immunocompetent subjects...

BACKGROUND: Despite a high paediatric tuberculosis (TB) burden globally, sensitive and specific diagnostic tools are lacking. In addition, no data exist on the impact of pulmonary TB on long-term child lung health in low- and middle-income countries. The prospective observational UMOYA study aims (1) to build a state-of-the-art clinical, radiological, and biological repository of well-characterised children with presumptive pulmonary TB as a platform for future studies to explore new emerging diagnostic tools and biomarkers for early diagnosis and treatment response; and (2) to investigate the short and long-term impact of pulmonary TB on lung health and quality of life in children...

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive interstitial lung disease characterized by alveolar epithelial cell injury and lung fibroblast overactivation. At present, only two drugs are approved by the FDA for the treatment of IPF, including the synthetic pyridinone drug, pirfenidone, and the tyrosine kinase inhibitor, nintedanib. Avitinib (AVB) is a novel oral and potent third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor for treating non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the role of avitinib in pulmonary fibrosis has not yet been established...

BACKGROUND: Fibrosing interstitial lung disease (F-ILD) is a major public health concern due to its poor prognosis. Recent clinical evidence shows that antifibrotic approaches such as pirfenidone and nintedanib provide better clinical outcome prediction in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) as well as selected progressive fibrosing ILD (PF-ILD) patients. Having epidemiologic insight into these diseases will be essential for the efficient utilization of these therapeutic resources. This study aimed to estimate the current prevalence, incidence, and mortality of F-ILD classified as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), PF-ILD other than IPF, and non-progressive F-ILD and their temporal trend in Korea...

BACKGROUND: Asthma is a diverse disease with various etiologic bases. Severe asthma can be associated with increased mortality, hospitalization, and decreased quality of life for asthma patients. High blood eosinophil counts were associated with severe asthma, but recent studies have failed to confirm this as a marker of severe asthma among adult asthma patients. As a result, the purpose of this study was to determine the association between the severity of asthma and high blood eosinophil count...

BACKGROUND: Spontaneous pneumothorax associated with tuberculosis due to clinical manifestations, imaging findings and negative pleural biopsy is rare. CASE REPORT: A 43-year-old young woman went to the hospital several times because of recurrent dyspnea and was diagnosed with a right spontaneous pneumothorax. She underwent multiple closed thoracic drainage procedures, but the pneumothorax was not completely resolved. Pleural biopsy pathology was chronic inflammation; there was no evidence of tuberculosis...

BACKGROUND: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive disease of the lung. How to build a typical human mimicking animal model has been a challenge. Thus, to reveal the mechanism and to make it useful for IPF clinical treatment, a different type of mice model and inspection methods are used to evaluate which one is applicable for the study of IPF. METHOD: 69 Twelve-weeks-old C57BL/6 mice were divided into 3 type groups (n = 7 for each control group, n = 8 for each BLM-induced pulmonary fibrosis groups), as intraperitoneal injection, intratracheal administration, and intravenous administration of bleomycin (BLM) to initiate lung fibrosis...

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to identify new classes in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) using physiological and clinical variables and to explore heterogeneity in the effects of glucocorticoid therapy between classes. METHODS: Using the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care-IV database, we identified patients with ARDS. Potential profile analysis was used to identify classes with physiological and clinical data as delineating variables. Baseline characteristics and clinical outcomes were compared between classes...

BACKGROUND: Small airway dysfunction (SAD), a hallmark of early lung function abnormality, is a major component of several chronic respiratory disorders. The role of SAD in patients with connective tissue disease-related interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD) has not been explored. METHODS: We conducted a two-parts (retrospective and prospective) study to collect pulmonary function tests from CTD-ILD patients. SAD was defined as at least two of the three measures (MMEF, FEF 50%, and FEF 75%) must be 65% of predicted values...

BACKGROUND: Recently, deaths due to mucormycosis in immunocompromised hosts have increased; however, the clinical and pathological features of mucormycosis are not fully understood, especially in view of the associated high mortality and rare incidence in immunocompetent patients. CASE PRESENTATION: We have described a rare autopsy case of a 67-year-old Japanese man with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who contracted mucormycosis. He had not been on any immunosuppressants, and his immune functions were intact...

BACKGROUND: There are regional differences in the effect of green space on mortality of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We conduct an ecological study, using the administrative divisions of Chongqing townships in China as the basic unit, to investigate the association between COPD mortality and green space based on data of 313,013 COPD deaths in Chongqing from 2012 to 2020. Green space is defined by Fractional vegetation cover (FVC), which is further calculated based on the normalised vegetation index (NDVI) from satellite remote sensing imagery maps...

BACKGROUND: Massive hemoptysis is a life-threatening condition that requires immediate treatment. This study aimed to retrospectively analyze the outcome of bronchial artery embolization (BAE) for massive hemoptysis, as well as potential factors that may contribute to the recurrence of hemoptysis after BAE. METHODS: A total of 105 patients with massive hemoptysis treated with BAE were analyzed. RESULTS: The immediate control rate of bleeding was 84...

BACKGROUND: Maximal mid-expiratory flow (MMEF) is an earlier predictor of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) development than forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1 ). Changes of lung structure in patients with MMEF impairment only is still not clear. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the structural features of patients with decreased MMEF by quantitative computed tomography (QCT) and develop a predictive model for predicting patients with reduced MMEF in normal lung function population...

BACKGROUND: Studies have indicated that hospitalized COVID-19 patients benefit from anticoagulation therapy in terms of survival; however, there is an ongoing controversy over the optimum anticoagulant dosage. This study aimed to compare clinical outcomes between patients who received prophylactic anticoagulation and those who received therapeutic anticoagulation. METHODS: A multi-center retrospective cohort study was conducted to determine the impact of anticoagulation dosage in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Ethiopia...

BACKGROUND: The pathophysiology, evolution, and associated outcomes of post-COVID dyspnea remain unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence, severity, and predictors of dyspnea 12 months following hospitalization for COVID-19, and to describe the respiratory, cardiac, and patient-reported outcomes in patients with post-COVID dyspnea. METHODS: We enrolled a prospective cohort of all adult patients admitted to 2 academic hospitals in Vancouver, Canada with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 during the first wave of COVID between March and June 2020...

BACKGROUND: Latent tuberculosis (TB) infection has been known as a seedbed for TB disease later in life. The interruption from latent TB infection to TB disease can be done through TB preventive treatment (TPT). In Cambodia, only 40.0% of children under five years old who were the household contacts to bacteriologically confirmed TB cases were initiated with TPT in 2021. Scientific studies of context-specific operational challenges in TPT provision and uptake among children are scarce, particularly in high TB-burden countries...

BACKGROUND: Rosai-Dorfman disease (RDD) is a rare benign non-langerhans cell histiocytosis, mainly involving lymph nodes and skin. It is even rarer occurring only in central airway of lung and in diffuse form. Central airway RDD is similar to malignant tumor in imaging by radiological method and in bronchoscopy features. It is difficult to differentiate it from primary airway malignant tumor and to diagnose correctively in time. CASE PRESENTATION: Here we present a rare case of 18-year-old male diagnosed with primary diffuse RDD in central airway...

BACKGROUND: The gold-standard method for establishing a microbiological diagnosis of COVID-19 is reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of a set of clinical-radiological criteria for COVID-19 screening in patients with severe acute respiratory failure (SARF) admitted to intensive care units (ICUs), using reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) as the reference standard...

BACKGROUND: Primary graft dysfunction (PGD) after lung transplantation (LuTx) contributes substantially to early postoperative morbidity. Both intraoperative transfusion of a large amount of blood products during the surgery and ischemia-reperfusion injury after allograft implantation play an important role in subsequent PGD development. METHODS: We have previously reported a randomized clinical trial of 67 patients where point of care (POC) targeted coagulopathy management and intraoperative administration of 5% albumin led to significant reduction of blood loss and blood product consumption during the lung transplantation surgery...

BACKGROUND: Primary pulmonary choriocarcinoma (PPC) is a highly malignant intrapulmonary tumor with a notorious prognosis. Few clinical studies have been undertaken to investigate the clinical characteristics and prognosis of PPC. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We systematically conducted a retrospective analysis of patients with PPC in the literature published in PubMed and CNKI databases until March 31, 2022. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality. Survival curves were depicted using the Kaplan‒Meier method and compared using the stratified log-rank test...