Introduction Airway epithelial cells are recognised as an essential controller for the initiation and perpetuation of asthmatic inflammation, yet the detailed mechanisms remain largely unknown. This ...

Background Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are known to increase the risk of pneumonia in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It is unclear whether the risk of pneumonia varies ...

Introduction Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive fibrosing interstitial lung disease of unknown aetiology and cure. Recent studies have reported a dysregulation of exosomal microRNAs ...

BACKGROUND A critical review was conducted of the quantitative literature linking indoor air pollution from household use of biomass fuels with acute respiratory infections in young children, which is ...

Aminoglycoside antibiotics are a central component of the treatment of pulmonary exacerbations of cystic fibrosis (CF) and slow the decline in lung function which ultimately causes the death of most ...

Rationale Health status is impaired in patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD). There is a paucity of tools that assess health status in ILD. The objective of this study was to develop and ...

Target audience for the guideline The guideline will be of interest to UK based clinicians caring for adults with pleural disease, including chest physicians, respiratory trainees, specialist ...

Cilia are organelles present on almost every cell within the body. In the respiratory tract, motile cilia line the epithelial surface and beat in a coordinated fashion to clear mucus from the airways.

Background Low-dose oral azithromycin therapy is recommended as a preventive treatment for acute exacerbations of COPD. However, the overall benefit–harm balance of this treatment has not been well ...

Purpose Long-term outcomes of critical illness may be affected by duration of critical illness and intensive care. We aimed to investigate differences in mortality and morbidity after short (<8 days) ...

Objective: To investigate the validity of spirometric tests performed in general practice. Method: A repeated within subject comparison of spirometric tests with a “gold standard” (spirometric tests ...

Background: Varenicline, a new treatment for smoking cessation, has demonstrated significantly greater efficacy over placebo and sustained release bupropion (bupropion SR). A study was undertaken to ...